Chances Book 1
by Miryl
Summary: When something changes in the story, suddenly everything is different... Ratet T just in case. I'm trying to follow the original story-arc, but of course there are differences, due to the change in the beginning... This is Book one. Book 2 and 3 will follow as soon as possible.
1. Intro

Just think... what if from a specific point in life some little detail would change. Instead of the left road you'd take the right. What would happen? Who would you be today?

(PS: As you may or may not have yet noticed, I'm trying to stick to the original story-arc as far as it suits the circumstances. Therefor you will find direct quotes from the original series. I do not Point them out in the text, to Keep reading fluid. I am not owning the characters, nor the world, nor do I Claim to. I write this only for my and my reader's amusement. Direct quotes of the series are only used for keeping as Close to the original story-line and character-developement as possible. Therefor: Have fun reading and enjoy!)


	2. Chapter 1

In the icy waters of the southpole a lonely iron ship passes through the night-dark sea. It's chimney clouds the sky with thick layers of smoke. And despite the roaring engines one could hear music and singing from the ship, if one would be close enough to hear anything that is. There also is a fire on deck. A small flickering light in the icy dark. Men are sitting around it, playing music and singing old war-songs. On the other end of the ship there is a young man, only a boy, to be correct, staring sternly into the dark ahead. The boy's expression is unusual for a man that young. It's very sincere and stern, nearly grave. The nearly bold-shaved head and the scar over his left eye may deepen this impressions. His eyes are permanently flickering, indicating that his scared eye has damaged sight-abilities. He only wears pretty thin clothing regarding the icy temperatures outside. Clothes suited for sleeping in a warm bed with thick blankets. Not suited for standing on deck of a metal-ship in the middle of the night while ice-bergs are passing.

Suddenly the boy is noticing something. The dark had parted to a light-grey object directly in front of him. It takes him only mere seconds to react, but seconds that seemed like lifetimes. "Uncle!" His voice, filled with panic, is not strong enough to over sound the music and the engines. "Uncle! Help!" Flames erupting from the boys hands, as he starts his try to melt the enormous ice-berg that races closer to the ship. (In fact the ship races towards the ice-berg, but you don't see it that way if you are standing on the ship.) "Uncle!"


	3. ad 1: Drifting

He clawed to an ice-floe with numb fingers and spinning head. Many questions filled his mind. What had happened? Where is his uncle? Where are the others? How did he came here? Will he survive? Diving in and out of darkness he soon lost count of time. And something came clearer every time he awoke again... he wouldn't survive.


	4. ad 1: Southpole 1

A person in thick blue clothing climbed out of a canoe and took a net with some fish out of it, before they started to walk inland. The snow and ice covering the landscape crackled under their boots. Watchfully they turned their head now and then. It's not an easy life out in the south. There are dangerous creatures lurking around... And then there is always the chance of the Firenation showing up. Suddenly they noticed something odd. Something that stuck out from the blinding white landscape. Something dark that wasn't moving. Irritated the person went closer. Was this... a human being? Now hurrying towards their finding they were soon sure that indeed this was a human being. They knelt down next to the lifeless figure and turned it around. Pale skin, nearly blue lips and fingers, torn clothing hardly suited for the south and... a scar... a burn-mark.


	5. ad 1: Southpole 2

"Poor boy..." Kanna looked at the unconscious stranger with pity. "Firenation does not even stop for children now, do they?" With a warmed, wet cloth she tried to clean the boy's face from the dried blood. They had already detected a deep cut on the boy's shaved skull. Something hard and heavy must have had hit him on the head. No one had seen him before, no one had a clue where he might have come from. All they knew was that he had been nearly dead when they have found him and that it was not sure yet if he would ever wake up again. They also figured that he had to be an enemy to Firenation, judging by the scar on his face. Kanna had agreed to take care of him and do her best to heal him, as far as possible. Since her grandchildren weren't here right now, she had to trust that they would agree. Katara and Sokka had always been nice children, who value the health of others like their own. She was sure they wouldn't mind to share their hut with an injured stranger.


	6. Chapter 2

"He can't have come here alone, can he?" a voice floated into his mind. "So? Maybe he is from a merchant's boat." another voice floated in "Who knows..." Why did his head hurt so much? "Maybe he was brought here by the Firenation..." the first voice came in again. Who were they? "Not likely." the second voice answered "The scar isn't fresh. Why should they keep him that long?" Who was he? "Hey, have you seen that?" the second voice sounded very much closer now. What exactly was going on? "I think he is waking up. Call gran-gran." the second voice continued. Why did his fingers feel so numb? "Hurry, Sokka!" It was not easy to open his eyes. They seemed like the lids were sticking together, but somehow he managed. A gasp and the noise of something falling were the next sounds he heard. His vision was completely blurry.

"Katara? Sokka said he is waking up." Another voice came to his ears. Some deeper, older sounding voice. It reminded him of something, though he didn't knew what it was. "We have to kill him!" the second voice sounded shrill now "He's a gold-eye." What the hell were they talking about? And what did gold-eye mean? "Katara, calm down..." the old voice interrupted "Let me see..." He saw a shadow passing over him. "Hm... Golden eyes... True..." the old voice was right next to him now. "But that doesn't mean anything now, Katara. Firenation has invaded many villages. He might just be a halfbreed. Let's wait until he is fully awake and see what he has to say. At least he can't be much older than Sokka. How evil can he be?" "Very..." the second voice grunted.

"It's alright." the old voice continued in a dull lulling-in kind of way. "We won't do you any harm. Take your time." He didn't even knew what they were talking about. Taking his time for what? "Katara, be a doll and bring some water." the old voice turned to the second voice. He had figured out now that the second voice must belong to someone called Katara. Most likely a female. "I'm Kanna." the old voice told him "Katara and Sokka are my grandchildren. We are very happy that you finally awoke." Finally? How long had he been here? Why the hell did his head hurt so much, why did he feel so thirsty and what was going on here? Why couldn't he move? Why couldn't he see more than blurs? He started to fight against the state of not being able to move and finally he managed to feel his fingers more clearly as they curled together to fists.

"You have been unconscious for very long. Nearly a month now." Kanna continued "Take your time. It might be hard to reclaim your full movements again." He managed to blink, did so some times, until his vision started to clear a bit. And the first thing he saw was the face of an old woman dressed in blue and fur, and a white ceiling. It made him feel like it should trigger something in him, but in fact he didn't knew what. "You are a stubborn one, aren't you?" Kanna sighed "Katara will bring some water, so you can drink a bit and later you can have some soup. We hardly could make you eat during your time here. How can we call you?" He blinked at her a few times. How could they call him? He didn't even knew how to call himself. He tried to speak, and instantly had to cough. Oxygen went short, he had the feeling to choke, but sitting up was not possible.

Kanna managed to aid him sitting up, and holding him tight until he could breath again. By then a young woman had entered, carrying a bowl of water. "Thank you, Katara." Kanna said, as the young woman handed her the bowl. "So, who is he?" Katara snapped "Did he say?" "Leave him time, child." Kanna sighed, leading the bowl to his lips, feeding him like a child. But because he was not even able to control his arms, he couldn't really fight the treatment. And he had to admit that drinking was quite good. Despite he had to cough again after drinking, he felt better then. Kanna put him back down to the fur he was lying on. "So, what's your name then." Katara asked roughly. "I don't know..." he whispered, since more his voice wouldn't allow. "I can't remember..."

"He's lying." He could hear them talk in front of wherever he was in. "Katara, please..." "He's a gold-eye, of course he is lying." "It is very likely that he suffers memory loss after being in a coma for nearly one month." "He most likely is a spy of Firenation. He want's to kill us all." "Don't be ridiculous, Katara. He's just a child, like you." Tired of listening he sat up. After a warm soup he felt much stronger now. They had brought him another bowl of water. Picking it up with some difficulties (his muscles weren't as strong as he had thought they would be) his eyes fell on the reflection in the clear liquid. Something was strange about it. He knew that this should be him, but it looked strange. He couldn't even tell what it was.

Maybe it was because he looked so different from the people he had seen until now. They had tanned skin and blue eyes, his skin was nearly white, despite the big red scar over his left eye, and his eyes were indeed... pretty goldish. Also his black hair looked different from theirs. While their hair was curly and dull, his was... despite that it was standing in all directions, shimmery and it seemed darker, and it was far from curly. Maybe it was because it wasn't as long as theirs. But even the boy's (Sokka's) hair wasn't like his.


	7. Chapter 3

It was a week later that he was finally able to get up and walk again. Kanna wasn't really happy that he tried to use his new found abilities, but it was ok. Katara on the other side locked him up in the ice-house he was in with waterbending. She bended water against the door-opening and froze it solid. So he wandered around in his little hut for some time, practicing his walking abilities and training his muscles a bit. He still remembered nothing, not even his name. So he had to cope with Katara and Sokka calling him Gold-eye.

Soon he started to feel really trapped inside the little hut. He sat down on his bed again, for suddenly he felt tired and dizzy and it seemed to him like the walls were closing in. Curling together on his bed he felt tears running down his face. Why did he feel so lost and lonely? He was missing something badly, but he didn't know what it was. And he also didn't know why he felt so sad most evenings. He simply felt really, really sad.

"Don't cry, darling…" a warm hand touched his face "It's alight. Katara opened the door again. I'm sorry I haven't noticed that earlier. She promised to never do this again…" He didn't answer but whipped his tears away hastily. "You don't have to hide your tears, darling." Kanna smiled "I have seen far older men crying. It's alright. Men also cry." "Also?" he asked "Only kids cry." "No, grown-ups cry too." Kanna smiled "And it's a good thing they do. Hiding all your emotions is not a good thing." He decided to not answer that. For some reason he knew she was wrong. It was wrong to show one's emotions. Only kids show emotion.

It was this evening he realized he could manipulate the flames of the small fire in the ice-hut by breathing deeply. The flames would follow the depth of his breaths with their length. Short breaths meant short flames, deep breaths meant long flames. He also figured that it calmed him, watching the flames dance to his breathing. It made him wonder though, if this was normal, or if Katara would hate him even more if she saw him doing it.

The next morning he found himself being locked in in his ice-hut again. He decided to knock on the wall to see if it would help, but in fact he just hurt his knuckles. So he gave up and went to search for food and water. He found neither. His stomach growled in protest. How could they lock him in with no food? That was simply cruel. Anger rising he pressed his flat hands against the ice-door. He found himself boiling with anger. The ice on his hands cooled him a bit, but not enough. It took some time until he realized that the ice was melting underneath his fingers and all around his hands. Maybe he had a fever? Well, whatever it was, it was breaking him free.

As the wall finally broke down, he was surprised how cold the air was. It kind of hurt in his lungs and on his face and hands it felt as if he was stung by thousands of tiny needles. But the feeling did not last long. Suddenly inner warmth filled his body and chased the stinging away. He took a deep breath and looked around. He saw ice-huts and tents and a lot of blinding white. The sun reflected from all the snow, hurting his eyes. But also only for a while until he got used to the brightness. Then he decided to explore…

Laughing made him stop his wandering between ice-huts and tents and drew his attention to a group of people standing with their backs turned towards him, blocking his sight. Wondering what was going on there, he went closer. As he could see between the people's backs he could spot Sokka, Katara and a smaller boy who had a blue arrow on his bald shaved head. He wore thin, yellow and orange clothes and looked nothing like the other people he had met. And then the boy did something that made him tense. The arrow-head opened a glider and jumped into the air to fly, laughing, while everyone was watching. It made him angry, how the boy showed off. It reminded him of something, just he couldn't say what exactly. Something that scared him though, and made him angry and feel dumb.

Hastily he turned away to return to his exploring. "Hey you!" he heard someone shouting and then with a thumb the boy landed right in front of him "Hi, am Aang. Who are you?" He looked at the boy, not knowing what to answer. He simply didn't know the answer. But in fact he didn't have to answer anyways, because Katara gave a cry of panic and darted towards them. "Aang, watch out!" she cried. "Why?" Aang asked. "He's Firenation!" Katara screamed, pulling Aang away from him. "Yes, I saw that… so?" Aang asked "I have friends in Firenation." All people around them stared at Aang horrified. "What?" Aang asked.

So Katara and Sokka and all other Watertribe-villagers told Aang (and him too, since he couldn't remember) that there was a war going on for the past hundred years between Firenation and the rest of the world. Obviously Firenation was trying to rule the world. And they killed all Airnomads in the try to find the Avatar, the one person who was able to control all four elements. Why Firenation would did that, Katara and Sokka wouldn't know, but they hated Firenation for killing their mother. That was also why they feared him. Obviously he looked like Firenation-citizens would look. So he was stamped as the enemy.

Aang wouldn't believe that the Airnomads were dead, for he was sure he had just left them. And no one would have been able to get up to the temples, because you only could go up there flying. So Katara and Sokka decided to go to the temple with Aang, to find out if there were still Airnomads around. They also told Aang on how they found "the goldeye" and that he wouldn't remember anything. But Aang seemed interested in him and asked him to join them. "I'll name you Kuzon." Aang decided "Kuzon's a friend of mine in the firenation. He's really fun. You should meet him. I bet he would like you. You could become friends. Maybe he even knows who you are."

"We definitely won't go to Firenation!" Katara hissed at Aang "They killed all of your people a hundred years ago!" Aang just laughed at her and promised to show her that she was wrong, once they were at the Temple. So they packed their stuff together and started their journey to the Air-Nomad Temple on a flying bison named Appa. He wasn't really comfortable flying, but neither were Sokka nor Katara. Aang seemed to enjoy it though, and he kept calling him Kuzon, until he kind of accepted the name as his own, although he kind of knew that this was not his real name. At least it was better than Gold-eye…


	8. Chapter 4

They made rest along the way, because obviously Sky-Bisons like Appa needed sleep too. Though this night, Kuzon was restless. While the rest of the kids slept tight (and Sokka was snoring like a rhino-bear) he was lying awake in his fur-sleeping-bag. The air was so icy cold on his face and the sounds around them all sounded so creepy. Even the crackling of their small fire (that Aang had made) was sounding off. For some reason his scar hurt. He hadn't felt it before… well, not really… true, the skin was tighter around his left eye, but it never had burnt before, like it did now. And whenever he closed his eyes, he could see a fireball closing in on him and could hear his own screams of pain and fear in his mind. So he tried not to close his eyes.

Obviously he had fallen asleep eventually, because suddenly it was morning and he awoke by the sunbeams tickling his face. He yawned and sat up, just to see Aang stretching exaggeratedly and then sitting up with a bright smile. "Airtemple, here we come!" he cried out, and Kuzon was sure that if he hadn't been awake before, he would be now. To his surprise Sokka's snoring hadn't stopped for a moment, and Katara simply turned around muttering something to herself. Aang hopped up, still in his sleeping back, making him look like a giant blue fur-worm standing on its behind.

"This will be sooo awesome!" Aang shouted into the air, spreading his arms widely, causing his sleeping-bag to fall down to his feet. Kuzon wondered why this kid wasn't freezing in his thin clothes. Though this time, Katara sat up yawning. "What is going on?" she yawned, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Rise and shine!" Aang smiled, stepping out of his sleeping bag "Today you will behold one of the most beautiful things in the entire world!" "Aang, we don't know how long you have been in the ice-berg before we found you…" Katara sighed, like a mother trying to get her overexcited child off of its overdone-expectations to prevent it from being overly disappointed afterwards. Mother… He should have one somewhere, shouldn't he? Something told Kuzon that he missed his mother right now.

It took some more effort to wake Sokka up. This Aang did while Katara and Kuzon packed together their camp. So, soon later they were back on their way. Despite Sokka finding out that Aang had used some sort of snack Sokka had had packed for the journey to start the campfire last night, they had no further interruptions of their travel. In fact it was still pretty early when they finally laid eyes upon the Southern Airtemple. In fact it did look fascinating. Built on a steep mountaintop its round towers pointed high into the sky and their blue and white colours glittered in the sunlight like gems.

Unluckily the whole city was covered with snow. Kuzon really had hoped it would get a bit warmer, once they had left the south-pole, but obviously he was out of luck. They landed on a flat bolder just next to a stone-bridge and a narrow pathway leading steep up the mountain. While Aang was still overly excited, Sokka complained about being hungry. Kuzon just wondered about the quiet… It all sounded so… dead… Katara on the other hand was just excited to see the temple. Obviously no one had ever seen an Airtemple before. At least Katara said so. Kuzon really didn't believe that. If at least some Airbenders were at least a bit like Aang, there would have been a busy coming and going of all kinds of persons…

Aang started showing them around, when he realized what had been so obviously for Kuzon, the moment they had set foot on this rock: The place was deserted… Unluckily Sokka found it a good idea to bring Aang on other thoughts and asked him about some game called "airball". So they were standing at the field soon later, looking up to the poles all over the field, while Aang hastily explained the rules, trying to get them to play. He got Sokka to join in, while Katara and Kuzon waited at the side and watched them. Again Aang showed off, using his airbending-skills, causing anger to boil up in Kuzon again. He tried to hide it though and let a puff of smoke out of his nostrils to lower the pressure, once Katara wasn't looking.

In fact she wasn't looking right then, because Aang had shoved Sokka through a wooden target of some sort again, with the ball, sending the Water-tribe boy falling down into the snow harshly. So Katara was hurrying over to her brother to make sure he hadn't been hurt. Aang was laughing, flinging his arms in the air, while still standing on one of the poles. It made Kuzon picture sending a fireball at the Airnomad-kid in his mind. Aangs laughter was mixed in his brain with another laugh, one that sounded shriller and made something cold run down his spine. He somehow knew this laughter in his mind belonged to a girl. A girl he somehow feared. He simply knew, if she saw him, she would either hurt or humiliate him in any way she could. And therefore he was glad she, whoever she was, wasn't there right now.

But this time Katara wasn't returning, and Sokka wasn't climbing back up on the pole to face Aang again. This time both of them stared at something in the snow, and then Katara called out for Aang, telling him there is something to see for him. But once he arrived, slowly followed by Kuzon, Katara suddenly bended snow over her brother and the object they both had been obviously staring on, and explained she only had wanted to show Aang a new bending-move she had learned. This caused Aang to get his mind back on exploring the temple. As Aang went away to lead them on, Kuzon heard Sokka say to Katara that she couldn't protect Aang forever.

But the girl only walked away, following Aang, and so Sokka sighed and followed her. Wondering what they might hide from Aang Kuzon sneaked over to the pile of snow, Katara just had unleashed on the spot, and stretching an arm out to dig away some snow, he accidentally released a leash of fire on the spot. The snow melted instantly, but Kuzon took some time to catch his breath and calm his racing heart, looking around if someone might have seen his fire. Luckily none of the others had paid attention to him. So he turned his attention back to the spot and saw a helmet. It kind of looked like someone had tried to imitate a flaming skull but had not really succeeded. Kuzon wondered what this helmet meant. It kind of looked awkward to him…

They finally reached the top. Kuzon had tried to remain unnoticed by the others, eavesdropping on Katara and Sokka who went before him. They were talking about Firenation had been there and that they couldn't keep it secret from Aang all the time. But Katara wanted to try anyways, for preventing Aang to be heartbroken about losing all his friends to a war he seemingly had through-slept… Aang seemed not to notice what was going on behind him, for he kept showing them around light-heartedly, including a statue of an old monk in the middle of a platform.

They went on to a giant door. Aang pointed out he wanted to meet someone behind it. While Katara and Aang were still talking about that maybe no one was still here, Sokka tried to open the door, in hope of some food, but failed horribly. Kuzon had figured out he would, since the door was decorated with giant trumpets of some sort. So it simply had to have some sort of lock. Which was most likely triggered through airbending. Aang confirmed this conclusion by telling Sokka so. He took stance, causing Kuzon to think about the terrifying girl again and blew air into the horns. Some tones were to hear and snail-shell-like structures on the door moved, causing pipe-pieces to fall down and the door swung open.

The room was completely dark and made Kuzon think twice before following the others inside. Inside it was even creepier than outside. There was a spiral of statues filling the dark room. Statues of humans. And they seemingly represented the four nations. They also were in some sort of order. Firenation was followed by Airnomad was followed by Watertribe was followed by Earthkingdom was followed by Firenation and so on. While wandering though the lines of statures they wondered who these people might have been, and Aang pointed out he somehow knew them. They also noticed the pattern then

And then Aang said something like "That's the Avatar-cycle", causing Kuzon to wince with inner pain. Sinking to his knees, bracing himself he tried to not cry out, despite he felt like his face was on fire. His scar suddenly burnt like newly made. Some memory hit him like a hammer. The words "banned" and "Avatar" started to circle in a wild goose-chace through his head. And then everything went black.


	9. Chapter 5

"Hey, are you alright?" Something cold on his face made Kuzon come back to himself. "What just happened?" Aang was over him, trying to shake him awake, while the other two were just staring down at him from over Aang's shoulders and some wired animal was in his face, sniffing his eye with a could snout. "Go off of me…" Kuzon grunted, shoving the thing away. "That's just a Lemur… he won't harm you…" Aang promised "You were suddenly lying there… Are you alright?" "I… I don't know…" Kuzon murmured, sitting up, trying to hide that he was blushing. Fainting right before this kids… right… greatly done… "It's alright…" Aang smiled at him "I guess we pushed you a little too far, huh? Regarding that you just awoke from a coma some days ago…" "Maybe…" Kuzon murmured.

To his dislike they took the Lemur, which they named Momo, with them as they left the room. Also Aang seemed to have confessed to them that he had run away from home, because the monks had told him that he was the Avatar. He simply couldn't cope with the responsibility. On their way down back to the Bison they went another route. They found a hut that Aang insisted on visiting. He claimed it to be the house of one of his friends. The others agreed in hope to find something to eat there, but then everything went different… As they entered through torn curtains the first thing they saw…

"Firebenders?" Aang muttered, staring down at the long rotten corpses of a dozen of soldiers at the least. All of them were wearing black and red uniforms and those ridiculous helmets. And there was another skeleton at the far end of the room. One clad in yellow and orange monk-clothes. In fact, it looked like the statue of the monk, Aang had introduced them to before. Aang noticed that too, and he let himself fall to the floor weeping. So Firenation had really invaded the temple, killing all the Air-Nomads one hundred years ago? Things did look worse for Kuzon now than ever before…

As Sokka and Katara tried to calm him, suddenly Aang's Arrow-Tattoos started to glow. He rose to his feet like in trance, and a storm was building up in the hut, causing Kuzon to instinctly seek cover. An Airbubble formed around Aang, sending the water-Tribe siblings sailing away and down to the floor, and finally it blew away the remainings of the hut. Kuzon desperately clawed on to some remaining stone wall but felt his strength and grip fading quickly, as the wind around him got stronger and stronger. Katara slowly fought her way against the storm, trying to reach Aang, who obviously wasn't really himself anymore.

Suddenly he even started to rise in the air, still in a ball of air, still causing a strong wind. Seeking cover behind some rocks, Katara tried to talk to Aang, shouting up to him through all the wind. She babbled on about how hard it was to loose someone and that he wasn't alone, promising him that they, Sokka and herself, would be his family now that he had lost the monks. Kuzon didn't believe it would work. She merely managed to make his throat sour and giving him more difficulties to cling on to the stone, but to his surprise Aang lowered himself back to the ground and the wind stopped. Breathing out in relieve Kuzon let go off the rock and examined his bleeding fingertips. The Water-Tribe siblings though went over to Aang, and as Katara took Aangs hand the glowing faded too and he collapsed into her arms.

While they went back down to Appa to load their stuff, Aang went back to visit the statues. The Lemur meanwhile had disappeared, but came back with his little arms full with fruits and vegetables, once they were ready to depart, which made especially Sokka very happy. Aang went sentimental, claiming Appa, himself and Momo were all that was left from Airnomad-culture, though while saying such thing, he still was smiling and sounding kind of peaceful. Something surely was wrong with that kid.


	10. Chapter 6

On the other side of the world a nervous servant crept into the throne-room of Firelord Ozai. It was always better to prevent getting noticed by the royal family, but bringing bad news to the Firelord was like committing suicide. "My… my lord…" the servant stammered, kneeling before the flame-framed throne. "What is it now?" Ozai hissed, not happy about being disturbed again. "The Firesages sent me…" the servant muttered "The Avatar has returned…"

He could feel the heat rising, as the flames got higher, showing the Firelord's anger all too clearly. Cold sweat tickled down his spine and formed drops on his forehead. And there was still another message to deliver… "I trust all forces had already been sent out to search for him…" Ozai growled from between the curtain of flames. "Does one know if my no good brother and the disappointment of son of mine are on his tail already?" "Uhm… there is another thing, my Lord…" the servant confessed "We haven't got word from your son's ship for over a month now… They had last been placed in the waters of South-Pole, but no one had seen them since then… Shall we send a search-party, my Lord?"

"No, they will have given up eventually, going into hiding, or something like that…" Ozai growled "Don't worry about them. I want all forces on finding the Avatar. And tell the men I want the Avatar alive! Only then can we make sure he will never return." "Yes, my Lord." The servant muttered, getting ready to run for his pity excuse of a life. "You are dismissed." Ozai said, causing the servant to jump up and retreat in a hurry. A smile glided over the Firelord's face. Well, well, so his son and brother had disappeared… They will turn up again eventually, once they hear that the Avatar had been spotted. As far as he knew his own son, he wouldn't give into defeat. But he would be too late anyways, and then he would be rid of two problems at once. The Avatar, and his retarded son…


	11. ad 6: Kyoshi

Aang had spent the last hours trying desperately to getting Katara's attention. It was shameful just to watch. As he started nagging once again, Sokka put in a comment, which made Kuzon tense. But Sokka didn't notice the other boy wince and went on with what would be girl-things and what would be boy-things and that girls would be better at cooking, and sawing and stuff like that, while boys would be better at hunting and fighting. "You think so?" Kuzon snarled at him. "Of course!" Sokka smiled "Or do you think different?" "I do, in fact." Kuzon repeated "Talent has nothing to do with gender." "So can you cook then? Or saw?" Sokka asked, mockingly. "I don't know." Kuzon sighed "I can't remember."

"Kuzon is right!" Katara put in "Talent has nothing to do with gender! If you would at least try once, I'm sure you'd be an excellent cook." This made Aang chuckle. "Despite… you can learn a lot. You just have to have a good teacher." Katara went on. "That's why we're going to the North-Pole, right?" Aang shouted, again far louder than would have been necessary "To learn waterbending?" "Exactly." Katara nodded, shoving Sokka's pants back at her brother. "Hey! There is still a hole in there…" Sokka complained. "If you're not happy with her work, why don't you make it better yourself?" Kuzon told him "You can't know what you can do, unless you try."

Aang finding suddenly all of Katara's attention on the older boys started nagging again. Then he decided to suddenly change curse to some wired shaped island. "The siblings started to throw in that they were stopping far too often and were losing time, but Aang wouldn't listen and excused his stop woth his Bison being tired, before he spotted an elephant-koi in the waters. Before he even said it, it was clear to Kuzon that it was this why Aang had landed here. Aang was in his undies before anyone could have stopped him and told Katara she had to watch him, before he dove into the water. He was crying out as he realized that the water was kind of cold, which was kind of natural, when there was snow lying all around…

Never the less he continued swimming and actually was able to cling onto the fin of the giant koi. Kuzon sighed, shrugged and went to collect some dry wood for a campfire. He was called back pretty soon, as he heard the siblings' panicked screams. As he arrived back at the shore there was a giant finn reaching out of the water, definitely not belonging to a koi. Aang noticed the monster behind him in time and used his Airbending-skills to run on the water, away from the monster. Though he had too much speed to stop in time, as he reached shore, and ran directly into Sokka sending them both to the floor. The fishy monster disappeared back into the water.

As Katara hurried to help them up, suddenly out of the trees fell people with white-painted faces, clad in green, long uniforms. Before the group could even think about defending themselves they had been taken captive by the strange people. Kuzon, standing a bit outside of the group, managed to slip behind a tree. While the others were bound and blindfolded and dragged away, he carefully followed them, cautious to not make a sound or be detected otherwise. He followed them up to a small village where the other three were bound to a large pole. An elderly man and the soldier-girls, because that what was the green-clad people were, talked to their captives, but Kuzon was too far away to understand what they said.

He carefully crept closer. Suddenly the old man turned away and the girls drew fighting-fans and closed in on the group. With a cry of rage Kuzon darted towards them to save his comrades, causing enough confusion among the soldier-girls that Aang could break himself free with Airbending, causing the whole village to turn and stare at him. Now being close enough Kuzon heard the old man saying: "It's true, you are the Avatar." As soon as he had said that, Aang again had to show off, totally forgetting about the still bound water-tribe siblings. Kuzon sighed and cut the ropes holding the two with a blade Kanna had found on him, when they had brought him into the water-tribe village over one month ago.

For some reason all the villagers went crazy for Aang. The kid finally got all the attention he wanted. While the group was placed in a big house and was provided they possibly could wish for, the village did all to honour the Avatar. While the rest was enjoying the best food they had like in… most likely forever, Sokka was sulking, because he had been defeated by a bunch of girls, how he put it. It didn't really help that Kuzon put in a "I told ya so." Sokka stormed off mumbling to himself angrily, after grabbing arms full of the delicious food. Aang shrugged his shoulders and went on how wonderful it was there, since the people would give them the "royal" treatment, again a word which made Kuzon wince.

As Katara told Aang that they couldn't stay for too long, Aang went kind of upset, stating how happy he would make the town, and that he was just a simple monk. Either he was blind to his own behaviour or he was trying to trick Katara, because he obviously enjoyed being the centre of a whole town's attention, and didn't mind a bunch of girls standing underneath their windows, screaming with joy whenever they saw him. They even would follow him around wherever he went. And being Aang he still had to show off again and again, causing Kuzon to get angry, every time he saw it.

Somehow Katara managed to make the complete opposite of what Aang wanted, and started to ignore him completely. Therefore she turned her attention more towards Kuzon, who was the only one left with her in the house, most of the times, helping her clean, cook and do other tasks that were on the line. "Thanks." She smiled at him, as he took a bag of groceries from her. "You know, for staying here with me, and not trying to impress some girls like the other two…"

The days passed with Sokka trying to impress the Kyoshi-Warrior-girls, Aang fooling around with his fandom, and Katara and Kuzon doing all tasks at hand. When again they were at the market buying vegetables, Aang went over to Katara. "Good you are here, you can help me carry this…" Katara smiled, handling a bag with vegetables "It's a bit heavy." Though Aang excused himself, saying he had promised to let the girls (being his fandom) ride Appa. They started to argue, so Kuzon intervened, taking the bag from Katara, despite he had another heavy one to carry and went back to the house. He noticed Katara stop in mid-sentence and the heard her following him. She caught up with him, laid her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. While Kuzon went red, Aang went pale like snow.

Meanwhile Sokka had managed to get himself into the tutoring of the Kyoshi-warriors, and he really improved his fighting-skills, as Kuzon had observed watching him from afar. In the evening Aang decided to win Katara back by doing something ridiculous stupid. And he told her beforehand. He told her he would try to ride the sea-monster that nearly ate him back when they had landed on Kyoshi. Katara told him to do so, she wouldn't care, but Kuzon noticed she was worried. "I go check on him…" he promised, as Aang was gone. "Don't bother… he simply wants to show off again…" Katara sighed "Sometimes I feel like they think I'm their mother…" Kuzon smiled a bit on that. Aang really behaved like a toddler, desperate to get attention from his parents.

They still decided to go after some time, since they haven't heard from Aang in a while. They met his fanclub on the way to the beach. Obviously they had gotten bored and left. Aang was still in the water when they arrived. He apologized to Katara for being a jerk, and made his way back to the shore, as suddenly the huge monster-fish appeared again. It dove Aang out of the water, and revealed of being not really a fish bit more like a sea-serpent. As Aang clung to its fins it began spitting water at him in a powerful beam. Katara started screaming out in fear.

Kuzon did the only thing that came to his mind. He simply jumped into the icy waters and dove towards the serpent. Right in its attack on Aang, the serpent noticed the movement in the water and turned its head on its second prey. Kuzon dove out of the water and as the serpent's head shot down on him, he unleashed the most powerful firebeam he could manage on the creature. At that moment Katara's yells suddenly stopped. Aang's screams silenced too. But Kuzon had no time to pay any attention on them. Blinded by the fire and wild with range, the serpent attacked again and it was even angrier than before. Kuzon had difficulties keeping the sharp teeth at bay. Jumping into the water to save a stupid boy from a monster-serpent had not been one of his best ideas lately…

He saw that Aang used his Airbending to take a leave and decided it was better to vanish as well. Diving under, he hoped the serpent wouldn't notice that it just had lost both of its targets. But unluckily the monster seemed to feel the movements in water. It dove down on him as if it was able to see him. But right before the giant had would have hit him, the serpent turned and vanished. Relieved but knowing he wasn't out of danger just yet, Kuzon hurried to get back ashore. He could see Aang attacking the monster from a safe spot on Appa's back. But unluckily Kuzon's movements got the serpent's attention back at him. Again using fire against it, he tried to use the backfire to bring him further away from the predator. Meanwhile Aang airbended down at the serpent the best he could.

Soaking wet and out of breath Kuzon crawled back ashore. The serpent had not liked the second fireblast and had turned to leave. This snack wasn't worth the pain. Aang landed next to him soon later, pulling him back to his feet. "Thanks, man…" he mumbled. Katara was nowhere to be seen. Kuzon simply nodded in return. He was freezing. Jumping into water with your clothes on was simply a bad idea. Aang smiled and unleashed a strong but warm wind at him, drying him up, but also causing his hair to stand up in all directions, causing Aang to laugh in amusement.

As they returned to the house, neither Katara nor Sokka would speak to Kuzon anymore. Aang could try to reason with them all ways he liked, it wouldn't help. "We need to leave now." Katara decided suddenly "Come Aang." "I don't want to." Aang cried. "We have to. What do you think will happen now? Kuzon is a Firebender. Once he has his memory back he will kill you. He might even have it back already and has called his people for help. There might be firenation here any minute!" "He tried to save me!" Aang complained "He wouldn't have done that if he was evil, right?" "Who knows…" Katara hissed. "I didn't…" Kuzon dared to put in. "Shut up!" Katara growled "You're staying here. We don't want you with us any longer!" "If he is staying, I'm staying." Aang decided, folding his arms tightly before his chest.

Their argument was cut short as suddenly alarm bells rang. One of the warrior-girls came stumbling into their room. "You need to leave now!" she huffed "A Firenation-Ship is coming! You need to leave before they are here!" From that moment on there was no time for arguing anymore. They simply gathered together all of their stuff and as many supplies as they could possibly carry and hastened to Appa. Climbing his back in haste they were gone only mere minutes after the warning. Looking down they could see three iron ships landing on the shore of the island. Something about this ships made Kuzon tense again, but he couldn't say what it was.


	12. Chapter 7

It seemed like Aang had no hurry to reach the north-pole at all. They stopped often and unnecessarily. For example, Aang would stop at the Earth-Kingdom Omashu, to visit an old friend of him… It made no difference to point out to him, that this guy would be over a hundred years by now, if he was still alive. Aang wouldn't listen to any of their wisdom. And once the siblings saw the city from afar, they were simply baffled. It seemed like they had never seen a real city before in their lives. Kuzon was not sure if he had ever seen a real city before, but the Kingdom looked just like the Airtemple, just not so high up. Well, and maybe with some sort of different architecture, but what a difference did that make now?

Aang was really eager to show them the city, but Katara pointed out that it might be dangerous, if people discovered that he was the Avatar, now that they had the Firenation on their toes. So they decided that Aang needed a disguise. Good thing was that they had a furry beast with them that had enough fur to cover all of them with ease, if they needed it. But right now they just needed a bit of that fur. Sokka and Katara seemed to find it very funny to make Aang a moustache and a wig out of Appa's white fur, making him look like a very tiny, wired old guy. "This will never work…" Kuzon murmured to himself. "Have a better idea, Goldeye?" Katara hissed at him, causing Kuzon to shut up quickly. He knew he was not in a good position with the siblings right now, since they found out he was indeed a Firebender. Only Aang had kept him in the group. So he had to cope as good was he could, until he could proof himself worthy again. Katara was easy to change moods, and Sokka used to follow her opinion on people. So, one time she could be pissed and gloomy, and the next moment she could be nice and caretaking, just because you did something she liked…

Aang used his glider as a cane and changed his voice in what he believed sounded like an old man. He also started to walk like that, so the others shrugged and followed. They had to pass a long stone-bridge over a deep canyon. Luckily the bridge was wide enough for three Sky-Bisons to walk next to each other, without being in danger to fall. They still tried to keep themselves in the middle of the road, just to be on the safe side. On closer sight the city did differ from the Temple quite a bit… It looked as if it was made of sand, building different-sized pyramids. And it wasn't all that cold any longer. Aang was telling them that they would love Omashu and that people there would be oh so friendly, when they finally reached the entrance. As right in front of their eyes three guards were shouting at a salesman and were earthbending his cart down the canyon. Kuzon wanted to interfere, but Katara caught his arm and held him back, signalling to shut the hell up. They didn't need more attention right now. "Just keep smiling!" Aang told them, put on a huge smile and went on.

Kuzon soon was sure that there had to be cities with friendlier people than that ones. They bended a rock out of the bridge and held it over Aang's head with bending. "State your business." They snarled. Though Aang slipped away from the threatening stone and was in front of the guy before Kuzon could even think to tell that so called guard his opinion. "My business is my business, young man!" Aang told the guard, causing the guy to drop the rock, causing a quake strong enough to cause Kuzon to fall. Aang went on insulting the guy, as if he was a grumpy old guy with a lot of selfesteem. It made the trick of letting the guard take a step back, and just asked for their names. Aang claimed to be Bong-Su something, which sounded really complicated and called the bunch behind him his grand-kids. Kuzon was sure no one would fall for that, since they obviously looked so different, but Katara went forward and greeted the guard nicely, making a name up herself, stating the same complicated surname like Aang had. To Kuzon's surprise the guard decided that Karata looked like a responsible young lady and tasked her with making sure Aang stood out of trouble and let them pass. Kuzon wondered if all earthbenders were this dumb. As the guard stated "Wait a minute!" he though suddenly feared they could read his thoughts, but they simply caught Sokka by the shoulder and lessoned him to show respect for the elderly and carry Aang's bag. Aang smiled and threw his bag at unhappy looking Sokka. As all of them stood before the wall that blocked the entrence, the guards earthbended it apart in three layers, making the siblings and Kuzon stare in awe.

They entered the city after Aang and the walls closed again behind them. They now were able to see some sort of slides going through the whole city. Carts filled with goods rushed by them on the slides. Aang explained that this was the Omashu-delivery-system. It worked with earthbending bringing the stuff up, and the slides bringing them down using gravity. Sokka seemed not too impressed by that, until Aang told them about another use, his friend Bumi had invented for the slides: Going down in a cart themselves! And again they found out why Aang had brought them here, as they had finally reached the top and Aang had found an empty cart to use as a gondola for sliding. "One slide, then we are off to the North-Pole." He promised. Kuzon sighed. This was so not going to be fun. He knew. He wasn't good in daring things… Also Katara suddenly got second thoughts about the whole thing, as she saw the angle of that thing going down, but Aang wouldn't even let her finish her sentence and start kicked the cart on its way by leaning forward. They all reacted far too late to stop it.

They shot down in breath-taking speed, causing the siblings to clinch to the wall of the cart and Katara screaming. Only Aang was laughing merrily, while Kuzon was sending prayers to the sky. He didn't want to die yet. Not while he did not even know who he was! He didn't even notice his hands clinging to Sokka's clothes, who sat right before him. Suddenly Aang's laughter stopped, and as Kuzon opened an eye to see why, he nearly was sure they were doomed for good now. On the slide right next to them was a cart with spears on it, tips facing down. "We won't end on the same slide as them, right?" he tried to say, but found himself unable to speak. And exactly that did happen. And even worse, the spears landed exactly behind them, only inches from Kuzon's back, closing in fast. He ducked, and Sokka did so too, but there was not enough room in the cart for both of them to hide. Kuzon felt as one of the blades ripped the skin on his back head. "I'm on it!" Aang cried back to them and somehow he threw the chart out of line, causing it to fall down from the slides. Kuzon didn't think that any better, and judging by the cries of the siblings they thought so neither.

The cart harshly landed on the roof of a house, bawling them heavily, pressing the air out of their lungs, and causing Kuzon to bet he now had some broken bones for sure. They bounced off the ground, on to another slide, leaving a lot of damage behind, and giving them a lot more of bruises. Katara finally asked Aang to use Airbending to slow them down, but Aang completely misunderstood and made them even go faster. Kuzon now pittied sitting in the rear, for now he couldn't hit Aang, without crawling over Sokka and Katara on the way, and he really preferred not moving too much right now. It got even worse, as the cart before them came to a sudden halt, and so Kuzon decided to close his eyes, so he at least wouldn't see them all die. Impact made them all being catapulted away, and Kuzon found himself, like all the others, falling. Luckily Aang caught them all with airbending and put them safely back in the cart. Still the impact on just another roof was really painful. "Please, stop…" Kuzon whimpered. But they wouldn't stop. So Kuzon closed his eyes again and clung onto Sokka and hoped that they would somehow survive. They ended up on the streets of the city. Kuzon coughed with pain, since all of them were lying on top of him. Now he really hated this city.

Worse, they got arrested for it. The soldiers ignored their begging and whining and dragged them to a huge building, into a dark hall. There they guided them before an odd looking old guy on a throne, and made them kneel before him. A guard called the guy "Your majesty" and named him a list of crimes they had been arrested for. Never again would he let Aang land anywhere else than they had to. This kid would kill them all with his reckless behaviour. Or get them thrown into jail or something! The guy who they had seen in front of the gates losing his goods was there also, asking the king to cut off their heads for destroying his cabbages. Luckily he was not to decide on their fate. And the surprisingly stupid judgement of this guy was to throw them a feast. Kuzon simply stared at the guy in disbelieve and so did all the others in the room.

So soon later they were provided with all kind of stuff to eat and drink, and Kuzon would have happily dug in, for they hadn't really had a real meal since they had left Kyoshi, if he hadn't felt so sick and nauseous from their suicidal ride down the delivery-system. It also didn't help the wired king skirting them and telling them that the people of his city had gone fat with too many feasts. Katara noticed, as the guy left for the other side of the table, that this guy was kind of crazy. "No kidding…" Kuzon murmured.

As the king sat down on his place on the other side of the table, he asked Aang where he was from, and Aang decided to lie and named his homeland "kangaroo-island", causing the king to state that this place was really "hoppy". Sokka started to laugh about that, but Kuzon guessed it was only from politeness. Pretending to be tired, the king seemed to stand up to leave, but instead he suddenly pulled a chicken leg out of his clothes and threw it at Aang, who had stated before to be vegetarian. Aang caught the meat with airbending right before his face. Kuzon knew this was going to be trouble.

Of course the king revealed Aang as the Avatar right on the spot. Aang let the chickenleg drop at once, but it was too late now anyways. As he noticed that, he got up and announced that indeed he was the Avatar, doing his Avatar-thing, keeping the world safe. Kuzon nearly laughed out aloud on that. Keeping the world safe? Quite the opposite, wasn't it? "Everything checks out, no firebenders here." Aang continued, taking a look under the table. Kuzon tensed again. "Soo good work, everybody…" Aang smiled, hugging Katara and Sokka who were seated at his sides. Babbling on he pulled them all backwards towards the door, but of course the guards wouldn't let them pass. "It really didn't help that Katara went all "You can't keep us here" on the king. For making another word-joke the king stated that the Avatar would face three deadly challenges tomorrow, and made the guards "show them to their chamber".

They were shoved into a room that was all walls and some furniture bit neither had windows nor a door… if you were no earthbender that was. And as fate had it, none of them was. Katara noticed that the room looked nice, and in fact the green-linend beds looked quite comfortable. But still they were looked in, and Kuzon really didn't like being locked in. They didn't even had a candle in here… "I wonder what this challenges are gonna be…" Aang muttered, examining his glider. "We are not sticking around to find that out." Katara decided "There's gotta be some way out of here…" That was when Aang discovered the Air-vents. "I can't speak for you, but my head does not fit in there…" Kuzon murmured. "Momo can fit in there!" Aang explained. Kuzon highly doubted that though. The Lemur had gained quite some weight at the feast and was looking more like a pregnant cat right now.

It turned out that Kuzon was right again. Momo's head fitted in, but his tummy was far too full. He got stuck. So the plan of getting Appa to bust them out, which Sokka agreed with Kuzon was highly unlikely anyways, failed by getting out the message. Katara gave up pretty quickly and decided they should get some rest. She crawled into one of the beds. "We can't wait until this nuthead feeds Aang to some monsters, can we?" Kuzon complained. "Do you have any better ideas, Goldeye?" Katara hissed at him, causing Kuzon to send a Fireblast against the next wall with a cry of desperation. "Oh, great! Let them find out you are a firebender, will you?" Katara snapped "Then they will kill all of us! Nicely done!" "There is no one here, is there?!" Kuzon hit back "And I'm not willing to wait until they decide to look for us again, in some years!" Another fireblast followed, and then another, but the walls were unimpressed by his effort, and he went out of breath quickly too. So there was no other thing to do than finally give up and crawl into bed like the others. Although every muscle in his body hurt like hell, he quickly fell asleep, once he had closed his eyes.


	13. ad 7: Bumi

He awoke from someone moving, but was hindered of making a sound by a tight grip on his mouth. Worse, the one holding him was far stronger than himself, and all of his struggling was useless. He could see that Sokka and Katara suffered the same fate. The three of them were dragged out of the room. As he somehow managed to get his mouth free and call Aangs name, it didn't help anything either, for Aang wouldn't wake up, and the guard that was holding him was just being more brutal with him than before. Since he refused on giving up on fighting back, he got bound by the guards, while the other two were just being held. They were dragged in front of another stone wall and were forced to wait. But Kuzon was brought in a different room. He was far too much trouble to take the risk of keeping him with the others. Still he could hear what they spoke. Despite he was in a small room in complete darkness.

"So I will give your friends some special souvenirs." He could hear the king say. "These delightful rings are made of pure genemite, also known as creepy crystal. It's cristal that grows remarkably fast. By nightfall your friends will be completely covered in it. Terrible fate, really. I can stop it, but only if you cooperate." "Ah! It's already creeping!" Sokka called out. "Where is Kuzon?!" Aang asked. "Safe… for now…" the king answered sneering. "I'll do what you want…" Aang huffed. "Don't!" Kuzon cried, as loud as he could, but it seemed like the others wouldn't hear him "Don't listen to him, Aang!" But he got no response. In fact he was left alone in complete darkness for quite some time. So he had time to pity himself about all his bruised and pains, and the hard, cold floor he was lying on, and that he will surely die in this horrible place. When he was done with that, he figured he could at least try to burn his bounds…

It worked, although he burnt his wrists a bit. Unknotting his ankles was quickly done after that. Now he simply had to escape the room. Righting a fire in his palm for a light source was one thing, but finding a possible escape was a completely different one. Melting stone was really not easy at all and running against the wall just made his body hurt even worse. But then suddenly the wall gave way and he stumbled into a corridor. Not that it was any better here. He was still alone. A rough hand grabbed him. "The king has requested you back, troublemaker." The guy said and pulled Kuzon with him. Luckily he was pulled back in the throne-room, where Aang, Sokka and Katara were, and also the strange king. "Kuzon! Are you alright?" Aang asked, hugging him. "I guess…" Kuzon murmured. "It turns out that this is my old friend Bumi…" Aang went on, pointing at the king. "What nice friends you have…" Kuzon mumbled.

Bumi told them that he had set all this up to teach Aang a viable lesson. As the Avatar he had to think different than he used to, he had a big task, bringing balance to the world, and he had to defeat the Firelord Ozai. Kuzon tensed by this name. In fact he tensed so hard that it hurt, causing him to huff and sink to his knees again, calling the attention of the crazy king on himself. "What might be wrong with you, hm?" the king stated and went circles around him "You seemed odd to me from the beginning…" "He has lost his memory." Aang explained "Katara and Sokka had found him unconscious and half frozen. He hasn't fully recovered from that…" "Interesting…" Bumi continued his rounds "You are a Firebender, aren't you, lad?" Kuzon stood silent, staring to the floor, to not show is yellow eyes. "You could be very helpful for Aang…" Bumi though went on "He also has to master Firebending eventually…" "Yes, sir." Kuzon murmured.

Returning to Aang, Bumi lessoned the Airbender to keep his friends close, for he would need them to defeat the Firenation. And that he would need Momo too. Kuzon couldn't really see for what though. Aang smiled and said he had a challenge for Bumi too. And Bumi agreed, before the others could warn him. Luckily they could get themselves out of the fun this time, and simply watched from a safe distance, as Bumi and Aang took a cart down the slide. After that they could luckily leave Omashu behind and continue their travels towards the North-Pole.


	14. Chapter 8

They stopped again some days later because they had gone out of food. So they had to land for restocking their supplies. While Katara and Aang stood back to clean their stuff in a little spring, Sokka and Kuzon went to find something to eat. Unluckily they couldn't find anything but a few nuts. "That won't even get Momo full…" Kuzon sighed, peeling a stone out of their collection, Sokka had just put in. "There needs to be something else…" "Like what? Trees?" Sokka complained, picking up another pebble to add it to their nuts. Kuzon picked it out again and threw it away. "I don't know… can we eat trees?" he asked. Sokka sighed. "Go ahead and try. I won't hinder you…" he stated. Cautiously Kuzon broke off a branch, as suddenly the earth started shaking wildly. "Ah! What was that?!" Sokka cried out. Kuzon stared at the tree alarmed.

"Sokka? Kuzon?" Aang and Katara were with them only moments later. The earth shook again accompanied with a loud noise. "It's coming from over there!" Aang cried, pointing in one direction, and then running towards the noise with Katara. "Shouldn't we run away from huge booms?" Sokka called after them, but as they didn't respond he followed, und so did Kuzon. They came to a dry riverbed where a young male was earthbending some rocks around, shoving them into the walls, causing the quakes and the loud booms. "Let's go meet him." Aang decided. "he looks dangerous, so we better approach cautiously." Sokka put in, but before he even ended the sentence, his sister had already run into the dry riverbed, calling out to the stranger. Kuzon released Aang's arm in confusion. He had thought Aang to do this, so he had grabbed him. He hadn't thought Katara to be so stupid.

But as the male turned to see who was calling out to him, he froze, and then started running as if it was for his life. He in fact bended stones down the riverbed to block their way to follow him. "Nice to meet youuu!" Aang caked after the guy. "I just wanted to say hi…." Katara stated, sounding disappointed. "This guy gotta run somewhere…" Aang realized, and Kuzon saw this as his cue to catch Aangs arm again, to keep him from running after him. "Maybe we are near a village!" Aang went on "And a village has a market!" "Which means dinner!" Katara cheered. Luckily Sokka got Kuzon's wink in time and caught Katara's arm too, just in time to hold her back from running after this guy. "No! We are going back NOW!" Kuzon demanded "This guy ran from us for a reason! We don't look so dangerous, do we? Now something had had scared him. And I won't stick around to find out what that was. Back to Appa now, and we land somewhere else to look for food, alright?"

Luckily Sokka agreed with him and helped him drag the other two back to Appa. "Better safe than sorry." Sokka stated, once they were back in the air and on their way to another stop nearby. "Better full than starving!" Katara gave back "I'm hungry!" Her tummy growled in approval. "Me too! Listen!" Aang agreed, having his tummy growl even louder. Both of them laughed about that. "We are all hungry, but people running from you, means that something is wrong." Kuzon murmured. "Maybe there was Firenation near…" Sokka agreed "We will land again soon, and hopefully find something else than nuts…" "And even nuts are better than firenation for dinner…" Aang agreed, laughing. Kuzon didn't found that all too funny.

They landed half an hour later, near a small lake. Lakes have fish, normally…" Kuzon pointed out. "Fish is meat too…" Aang complained. "You can still have nuts then…" Kuzon offered. "First of all we have to catch a fish, wiseapple…" Katara huffed. "It can't be so hard catching a fish…" Kuzon was sure. "I'll be glad watching you do so…" Katara snapped. Kuzon shrugged his shoulders, slipped out of his boots and coat and waded into the water. The rest was watching him interested.

Don't be too hard on him…" Sokka put in, after a while watching Kuzon stare holes into the water "He had properly never seen a not dead fish in his entire life…" Katara chuckled about that and Aang grinned widely. His grin soon turned into laud laughter, as Kuzon, trying to catch a fish, landed belly down in the shallow water. Sokka and Katara stared for a moment, and then broke into laughter too. They laughed so hard, all three of them actually fell to the floor, holding their bellies.

After he had failed for the third time to catch a fish and had landed completely in the water instead, Kuzon was pretty upset. With a cry of frustration he sent a firebolt into the water. Steam blinded him for a short moment. Obviously water didn't like being bended fire upon. "Why is this so hard?!" he cried, stomping his foot "Why are they so quick?!" "Try again…." Sokka managed to get out between laughing-fits, wiping away a tear "I'm sure you'll manage this time." The rest started to laugh even harder and Kuzon felt really stupid now. "You could help…" he shouted back, holding back tears of rage "If you would help for once, we would long have food by now." Though his outburst made the others even laugh harder. Luckily they were too busy laughing, that they didn't noticed, how tears were starting to form in his eyes.

Angrily he made his way out of the water, as suddenly his foot met something hard and slippery, causing him to fall again. As he opened his eyes underwater though, out of pure shock that he had actually fallen… again… he saw something strange. There were underwater-nuts… Well, at least they would have more nuts for dinner then… So he started to collect them hastily. He came out of the water with both his arms loaded with the water-nuts. They had black, slippery shells and they smelled a bit funny, but one could at least try to eat these, right? As he arrived ashore and dropped the nuts at their feet, they stared at them with open mouths. "I found water-nuts." He claimed, trying to get his self-esteem back. Sokka started laughing even harder than before, as he heard him saying that. "Ahahaha! Water-nuts!" he cried, rolling on the floor, holding his tummy "Water-nuts!"

It took quite some time for Sokka to calm down, and even more time to make Kuzon talk to them again. He was pretty pissed now, because they had been laughing at him. It only helped a bit that Aang dried him and tried to apologize without starting to giggle again. It was a bit more helpful as Katara explained to him that his water-nuts were actually clams, which in fact were eatable. It helped even more that she praised him for finding them and that she started to cook them on a fire. It also helped that she let him make the fire, and as they had all eaten up, while Aang had stuck with the real nuts, he was kind of back to normal. "We still have to find some more food for our travels…" Katara said, after their meal. "I know we are all tired, but the more food we can take with us, the less often we have to stop."

As they strode through the forest together, looking for food, Kuzon felt really tired. He had again exhausted himself uselessly. Why hadn't he learned yet to control his energy-use? He got tired way too quickly. Angry about himself he kicked something in front of him. It made a squishy sound and rolled away unevenly. "A fruit!" he called out, rushing after it to pick it up, but Katara held him back on his coat. "Hey!" she shouted at him "Be cautious! This might be poisonous." He had never thought that things could be poisonous. Sokka had picked up things with such implicitness that it never came to his mind that there were things one could, but really, really should not eat. "How… how do we find out?" he therefor asked, looking a bit puzzled.

"Finding the source…" Sokka explained, starting to look around "Which is most likely a tree, in this case…" "Like that over there?" Kuzon asked, pointing to a tree nearby, loaded with wired shaped fruits. They actually looked quite delicious. "Yes, liiike that…" Sokka sighed, seemingly ill tempered, because he hadn't seen the tree first. They went over to the tree slowly. "What do we see now?" Kuzon asked. "Well, no flies, which is good…" Katara stated, surrounding the tree. Kuzon stared at the tree, trying to figure out if it was poisonous or not. As he slowly stepped closer to find a clue, suddenly something rustled, and some kind of monkey jumped out of the tree, onto Kuzon's head and from there down to the ground, disappearing into the bushes. "Are monkeys a bad sign, or a good sign?" he asked.

It turned out that monkeys indeed were a good sign, and so Sokka decided to try a bite of one fruit. "I think we are safe…" he munched happily, taking another huge bite of the fruit. Katara rolled her eyes and started picking the fruits. "Alright. Collect as many as you can carry." She instructed the others. Loaded with fruits they returned to Appa soon later. They wrapped their precious findings into a blanket and took off again. Hopefully the fruit would suffice for the next few days. Happily to finally being able to sleep, Kuzon took his sleeping-bag, found a nice spot on Appa's giant saddle and curled together for sleep.


	15. Chapter 9

The fruit indeed lasted some days, although they weren't so happy about having the same fruit trice every day. They were all looking forward to a change of diet. The good part was, that they didn't have to land for quite some time now, causing them to getting forward way faster than before. So since it was a nice day, they were all enjoying the sun on their skin and were relaxing. Kuzon don't really like relaxing, but they had nothing else to do, so he either meditated, or he was staring at the clouds above them. Katara on the other hand was lying on her tummy looking down. Suddenly she commented on how fluffy clouds looked, and that it made her think about being able to just jumping down there and landing on a big, soft cotton-heap. As soon as she had finished this thought, Kuzon simply knew that Aang would try that out now. He knew the boy good enough now to not even look up to knew what had happened, as Aang shouted "I'll try it" and his laughter faded away.

He returned soon later, nearly landing on Kuzon, being completely soaked. "Turns out clouds are made from water." He commented, and the airbended himself dry, ignoring that Kuzon lay just next to him. "So I guess we learned something new…" Kuzon stated drily and put his clothes back in order. Now they didn't wore their coats any longer, for it was now warm enough to go without. The further north they went, the warmer it got. Suddenly Katara noticed something new. "What is this?" she asked, guiding the interest of the others ahead. "It's like a scar…" Sokka stated, causing Kuzon to absently touching his left eye. He was ignored though, and they decided to land, to investigate the phenomenon.

It turned out to be even worse than they thought. The land was burnt to ashes. Where once seemingly had been a wood there was nothing left but coaled stumps, reaching up from the ground like giant skeleton-fingers from their graves. Kuzon shivered. Their shoes left deep prints in the soft dust covering the floor. Sokka noticed how quiet it was. There was no insect humming and no bird singing. It was even deader than the Airtemple had been. "Aang, are you ok?" Katara asked, while Sokka kneeled down to examine the prints in the dust. Kuzon knelt down too and let the dust run through his fingers. He tensed as Sokka burst out: "Firenation! This evil savages make me sick!" But a Shhht from his sister made him shut up. Katara pointed at a devastated looking Aang, who let himself fall to the dusty floor with a deep sigh. "Why would anyone do this?" he asked, letting the dust run through his fingers. It was then that Kuzon noticed something in his hand, and picking it out he found it to be a seed of some sort.

"Hey!" he called out to the others, stopping Aang's sulking before it even really began "I found a seed…" "So?" Sokka snapped back "How is that supposed to help us?" "Well, I just thought… maybe the wood will grow back, if there are seeds lying around…" Kuzon muttered "Just… I mean…" "He is actually right…" Katara smiled, picking the seed out of his hand "The dust is best material to grow new life on. They now have enough nutrition to spread and grow… Look Aang…" She held the seed up for the Airbender to see. "Let's look if there are more of them. Each of them will be a big tree one day, and all the animals of the forest will come back!" Aang started smiling and they started their search for more seeds. They found plenty. "If all of them grow to trees…" Kuzon stated "This wood will even grew bigger and denser than it had been before…"

Suddenly they were interrupted by an old man, walking towards them. "As I saw the flying bison, I thought it's impossible…" the old man said "But these markings… Are you the Avatar, child?" he asked, pointing at Aang. Aang turned his head to Katara to check if it was ok to say the truth, and then both of them nodded. "My village desperately needs your help." The man said "Will you help us, Avatar?" "I can try." Aang answered with a smile. "Please, follow me…" the old man said, and so they had not much of a choice but to follow the guy to his village. It would have been rude to tell him that they were kind of in a hurry and had no time to help random villages. So they ended up in a pretty wrecked village. Most of the houses were badly damaged.

The man led them into the biggest house of them all, which hadn't been damaged, and introduced Aang to the people inside. "This young person is the Avatar." He announced. "So the rumours of your return are true…" a man smiled, walking towards the foursome "It is the greatest honour of a lifetime to be in your presence." Kuzon thought the guy way overrated it. "Nice to meet you too." Aang replied simply. "Sooo… Is there something I can help you with?" he then asked. "I…. I'm not sure…" the man said, but the old one from before interrupted him "Our village is in crisis! He is our only hope!" Why was everyone acting so melodramatic? "For the last few days at sunset, …" the old man continued "… a spirit-master comes and attacks our village…" Kuzon highly doubted that. For some reason he knew that spirits were normally very friendly beings. "Why is it attacking you?" Sokka asked.

"We do not know…" the younger man answered "But each of the last three nights he had abducted one of our own… We are especially fearful because the winter-solstice draws near…" "What happens then?" Katara wanted to know. "As the solstice approaches, the natural world and the spirit world get closer and closer until the line between them is blurred completely. Once the solstice is here, there is no telling what will happen." The older man explained "Please, help us, Avatar." "What do you want me to do exactly?" Aang asked. "Who better to resolve a crisis between us and the spirits than the Avatar himself. You are the great bridge between the two worlds." The old man explained.

"Hey, great bridge guy!" Katara whispered "Can I talk to you over here for a second?" So the four of them retreated in a quiet corner of the house. "Aang, you seem a little unsure about all that…" Katara stated. "Might be because I don't know nothing at all about the spirit-world…" Aang confessed "It's not like there's someone to teach me this stuff!" he then complained. "I think you can do it, Aang." Katara tried to sounded confident. "Yeah, we are all going to be eaten by a spirit-monster…" Sokka smiled, actually sounding pretty calm for what he had just said. "Spirits aren't evil…" Kuzon put in "Maybe it's hurt, or is somehow else looking for help…" "Yeah, so you go out talking to it, right?" Sokka grinned at him "I want to see you talking to that spirit."

So they were anxiously waiting for sunset. As the villagers didn't want to open the door again, once the spirit arrived, they were sitting on the small veranda in front of the house. "Hello! Great spirit!" Aang called after a while "Here's the Avatar speaking! I'm here to help…stuff…" "You don't have to call it, Aang…" Katara whispered "It will show up soon enough…" That moment the sun sank down beneath the horizon, leaving them back in darkness. "Weeell…" Aang sighed "The sun is set! Where are you?" But he got no answer. "Just wait and see…" Kuzon yawned. "I hearby ask you to please leave this village in peace!" Aang shouted, and after waiting some moments he stated: "Okey… well, I guess this is settled then…" With that he got up and turned back to the house, as suddenly out of the woods appeared a giant creature.

"Aang!" Katara screamed out in horror, and Sokka took out his boomerang. "You must be the hebay spirit!" Aang addressed the creature, as he turned around to his friends' screams and noticed it "My name is…" He was not able to finish, for the spirit screamed at him a beam of light, that made Aang looked kind of surprised and blown away. Then the spirit screamed its beam into the air and simply ignoring Aang it walked towards the house. All of a sudden, Kuzon was not so sure if all spirits were friendly anymore. This one seemed quite angry… "My name is Aang!" Aang shouted at the spirit "I'm the Avatar and I would like to help!" But he was ignored. With morphing from building to building the monster smashed the houses with its bare fists. "Hey!" Kuzon took all of his courage together and stepped in the monster's way "Hey, if you are upset because of the wood…" It rained down stones and house-parts on him, as the spirit rammed its giant fist into the wall above the boy.

"Good idea!" Aang called out to him, as Kuzon tried to save himself from being hit by stones. "Hey, spirit! I was upset because of the woods too!" he turned back to the spirit "But my friends showed me something… I want to show it to you too! Come on!" he called, turning towards the door. "Yes, follow him… He has something to show you." Kuzon agreed "Really. You will see!" The giant spirit looked after Aang for a while, and then actually followed him. "Oh, great! Now it's going to eat him!" Sokka commented from behind a barrel, he and his sister had used as hiding-spot. "Aang is going to show it the seeds…" Kuzon explained "He will be fine!" "How can you be so sure?" Sokka hissed.

They waited the whole night, but Aang didn't come back. "Something had happened…" Sokka was sure, as the sun had risen. Kuzon yawned and rolled himself together where they were sitting at the entrance to the village, resting his head on his arms. "We can't really know that…" he said sleepily. "Don't you dare to fall asleep now!" Sokka said, punching him in the shoulder. "But I'm tired…" Kuzon moaned "I need to sleep." "Let him sleep, Sokka. There is nothing we can do right now for Aang anyways…" Katara sighed "He will come back. I know he will."

Aang did appear again the next morning, followed by three confused looking villagers. The villagers were very happy to have their kin back, and they offered to repay Aang, so Sokka asked for supplies and money, which they were happy to give them. As they went away to gather the stuff they had asked for, Aang started to explain to them what had happened in the meantime. He had actually showed the spirit the seeds and the spirit had been content about that, and had turned into a giant Panda, before it had disappeared into the woods. But then a spiritdragon had appeared, telling him that it was Roku's animal-guide. So he had followed the dragon to an island with a volcano. There was a statue of Roku. The dragon had let him know that he would be able to speak with Roku only when the solstice was upon them. And it had to be there in the temple. So they would have to delay their journey to the northpole again, to visit the temple. It was not really helpful to know that the solstice would be the very next day, and even worse was that the island was in the Firenation…


	16. Chapter 10

They left as soon as all their stuff had been packed. There was no time to argue about it being a wise idea or not, flying directly into the enemy's fortress. They had to do what they had to do. "Excited about going home?" Sokka mocked Kuzon as they were on their way. "I don't remember home…" Kuzon shrugged "So I don't know if there is any reason for being excited…" "Well, maybe we find someone who actually knows you…" Sokka suggested. "Let's hope we don't meet anyone there…" Katara sighed. "What's this?" Kuzon asked, pointing at dark dots on the blue ocean underneath them. "Firenation-ships!" Aang cried out "Oh, come on!" "Let's hope they don't see us…" Sokka murmured. "We have to fly around them!" Aang cried "They will see us!" "We have no time!" Katara pointed out "Let's just try…" "It's too dangerous!" Aang sighed.

"Incoming!" Kuzon was standing on Appa's head, staring at the suddenly arising fireballs from ahead "Can we go any higher?" "Sit down!" Aang ordered, taking back the leads. It was right in time he made Appa fly a curve, so they avoided getting hit by a Fireball. It also made Kuzon nearly fall from Appa, but he caught himself in time. It was sheer luck they didn't get hit. The fireballs flew so thick and frequently like rain. Two of the balls even collided right before them, spraying burning shards at them. Kuzon bended the flames that had hit them out immediately. They did manage to go over the cloud-layer, but although it put them out of sight, it put the fireballs out of their sight too, causing them to randomly appear, out of nowhere. Again two balls collided right before them, and the impact-wave was strong enough to sweep Sokka from Appa's saddle. Aang flung Appa around immediately and sent them in a free fall towards the water surface, causing Kuzon to panicky cling to Appa's fur. Katara managed to catch her brother's hand and pull him back onto the saddle, but they had actually gotten so deep, that Appa's feet hit the water.

Now an easy target they raced towards the blockade closely over the water's surface, hoping that the sooner they came closer, the better for them, for the ships wouldn't be able to fire at them from close range. Kuzon again had crawled to the front of the saddle and started to firebend against the incoming Fireballs, with a little success. And then they were through. All of a sudden they were on the other side of the blockade. "We made it!" Aang cheered. "We got into the Firenation… great…" Sokka stated, sounding all but enthusiastic. "They will follow us…" Kuzon sighed, looking back at the ships they just passed. "I know they will…"

They flew quite some time without spotting the ships again, before they finally reached the island. It had a wired shape… One of a sickle's blade, or half a circle. And it had a quite active volcano on it. "I don't think we should land there…" Kuzon murmured. "We have to." Aang said "I have to meet Roku here…." They landed on a safe spot further away from the volcano. Aang and Katara though seemed to have enough time to pet Appa. As Katara said "You must be tired" to Appa, Sokka kind of felt addressed and stretching he assured that he felt quite refreshed and was ready to fight some Firebenders. Kuron felt kind of ignored. They still considered all Firebenders evil, although he was one, and hadn't done them any harm. "I was talking to Appa…" Katara sighed, sounding amused. To save himself from being embarrassed to not have noticed that, Sokka said that he had been talking to Momo, which wasn't really any better, because he had formed his words as an answer to a question, and since Momo couldn't talk, it was really obvious he hadn't.

They walked to a huge temple, leaving Appa behind. The Bison was having a well-deserved nap. As they reached the temple though, they couldn't see anyone around, so Katara guessed the temple was abandoned since Avatar Roku's death, but since it looked so neat and tidy, Kuzon really doubted that it had been left alone for so many years. Still since there was no one there, they decided to simply enter the temple. They had to anyways. Unluckily though the entrance hall was lined by four corridors. Aang decided to head straight ahead, but Sokka suddenly said: "Wait, I think I heard something." As they stopped and turned there were five old men standing behind them. The first of them started to growl something about they being the Fire-Sages, guardians of the Avatar's temple. "Great! I am the Avatar…" Aang pointed out. "We know." The guy said, and Kuzon suddenly knew they were going to attack. "RUN!" he cried, heading for the entrance they had been walking too, snatching Aang's arm while passing, dragging the Avatar behind himself.

The four of them ran as quickly as they could, but the Fire-Sages were on their heels. So Kuzon turned around in mid-running, sending a fireball against them, buying them enough time to slip into another corridor. "If the Avatar contacts Roku…" he heard the Sages' voices ring through the corridors, as they were running "… there's no telling how powerful the boy will become. Split up and find him." "Follow me!" Aang cried, taking the lead. "Do you know where you're going?" Sokka asked, but got a "No" as an answer. Aang vanished into a corridor, but returned quickly, calling "wrong way" to the others, while running back down the corridor they had just come from. As they looked over their shoulders as they followed him, they could see one of the Fire-Sages following them, calling "Come back! Unluckily they ran into a dead end. The Fire-Sage cut off their escape, so they all went into fighting stance.

"I don't want to fight you." The Sage whispered "I am a friend." "Firebenders aren't our friends!" Sokka answered. "Thank you." Kuzon hissed. "He is an exception." Sokka therefor added, pointing at Kuzon. But the Sage kneeled down before Aang and said that he'd knew why Aang was here and that he could take them to Roku. Then he slid away one of the lamps on the wall, and a hole appeared. With firebending into the hole he opened a secret door in the wall. "This way." He whispered "Quickly!" Although they weren't eager to trust the guy, they had no other chance. The other Fire-Sages were on the hunt for them, so they entered the secret hallway. On their way they got a boring history lesson about Avatar Roku forming the secret passages out of magma and about the Fire-Sages. Kuzon didn't listen, but had his attention on the red glow on the walls and the far less than pleasant smell that hung in the air. He also saw little streams of Lava flowing down next to them, above them, or somewhere underneath them.

As they stopped on the way, Kuzon nearly bumped into Sokka, but managed to stop before he did so. He kind of heard the Sage saying something about as he found out the Avatar was coming, he knew that he would have to betray the other Sages. "Thank you." Aang said. They went on, leaving a bubbling lake of red liquid at their right hand side, starting to climb an endless-seeming spiral staircase. Kuzon was completely out of breath, once they finally crawled out of a hole in the ground of the top floor. He tried not to show his exhaustion. "Ah no!" the Sage huffed, as they walked towards a huge door. "The sanctuary-doors… They are closed!" "Can't you open them again?" Kuzon asked, while Aang tried to push the doors open by hand. "No…" the Sage sighed "Only a fully realized Avatar could open this door alone… Or fife Master-Firebenders can open it together with simultaneous Fireblasts."

As Katara was looking over at Kuzon, he felt himself blushing. "I… I'm no Master… and I'm only one person…" "That wouldn't work…" the Sage sighed "Now we are stuck…" "Well, the others don't know that Aang's not a fully-realized Avatar yet, do they?" Katara put in. "You could call them for help and tell them you have seen Aang go inside, and that they need to help you, open the door!" Kuzon added. "So they will open the door with you, and Aang will slip inside, while we will jump out from behind these pillars and hit them over the head real good!" Sokka ended the idea. "And Momo is small enough to fit through the holes here…" Aang smiled "So there will be a shadow inside! They have to believe you then…"

"Come quickly! The Avatar has entered the sanctuary!" the Sage who was on their side called, leading the rest of the Sages to the door. Aang, Sokka, Katara and Kuzon were hiding behind the huge pillars, trying to not make a sound. "Look!" the Sage continued and pointed at the moving shadow of Momo, who was busy collecting all the food-pieces Kuzon had managed to stuff under the door. "He is inside!" another Sage cried "Open the doors immediately!" Aang crept nearer to the door, using the pillars as cover. The foursome watched, as the sages preformed simultaneous fireblasts at the dragon-mouths that were the locks. The door started steaming, and the middle dragon turned itself upside down, while the other four went a bit down, then the door slid open, blinding the ones in front of it with a bright, red light. Aang used exactly that moment to slip inside, while the other three jumped out of their hiding-places and hit the sages over the heads as hard as they could. Sokka using his boomerang, Katara using Aang's staff and Kuzon using a stone he had picked up on their travels. The Fire-Sage in their side took out the Sage next to himself with his bare hands. Aang threw the doors close behind him. "Now what?" Kuzon asked "Do we have some strings to bind them, so they can't harm us, when they wake up?"

"Look whom we have here…" suddenly a voice snarled and a guy in Firenation-uniform followed by skull-masked soldiers, came into sight "We thought you dead, my Prince." Katara, Sokka and Kuzon stared at the guy irritated. "Do we know you?" Katara stated, trying not to sound scared. They were only four, including the Sage, only one bending-Master they just met. And there were at least seven men standing in front of them, most likely all of them Master- Firebenders. "Your father will be glad to hear you have returned, Prince Zuko…" the guy went on, staring at Kuzon with an evil grin. "You must have him confused. His name is Kuzon." Sokka explained "He's just a wired kid we ran into. Really. By the way, you should hurry; the Avatar has just run downstairs!" "Very funny." The guy growled at Sokka, without letting Kuzon out of his sight "And I am not mistaken. I would never forget THIS face."

Kuzon kind of knew that this guy was just waiting for him to make a wrong move, to see him suffer, but since the guy might to be his only chance for answers at the moment, he still decided to ask: "You… you know me?" The guy's face looked puzzled for a slim second, and then he broke into laughter. "You are hilarious, my prince." He snarled "Don't say you can't remember me. It would really hurt my feelings." He though didn't sound like his feelings were hurt at all. "I… I'm sorry…" Kuzon went on "I don't remember anything…" "Nice play…" the guy smiled "Now step aside and let real Firebenders do the work you are obviously too weak to do…" "What work?" Kuzon asked. Why wouldn't the guy answer him? "Capturing the Avatar, of course." The guy grinned "The one thing your father sent you out to, three years ago. And since you are the disgrace that you are, you have nothing to show for..." "Why would I want to do that?" Kuzon interrupted, getting angry with that creep "Aang's my friend!"

The smile dropped out of the other's face quickly. For a moment there was complete silence. Then his mimic hardened and his tone changed into a dangerous hiss. "So you have the guts to betray your own father? You are even a greater disgrace than I thought you are!" Kuzon didn't know anything to answer to that. What was the guy talking about? Why wouldn't he answer his questions? "My… my father?" he then got out, after what seemed to be an eternity to him. "Kill them. They are enemy to Firelord Ozay!" the guy turned to his men instead "Capture prince Zuko alive, when you can. I'm sure his father, THE FIRELORD (with that he threw a side-glance at Kuzon), will be very happy to see him…" "You are too late anyways!" Katara cried, as the Firenation-soldiers were closing in on them "Aang's already inside!" They though didn't listen to her and tried to grab them, but Sokka threw his boomerang at the nearest guy, Katara waterbended a steam of water out of a waterbottle, which didn't really do any harm but to soak one of the soldiers, and Kuzon unleashed a Fireblast on them, but was easily knocked over as three simultaneous blasts coming back at him.

Soon later the whole of them including the Sage who helped them, were bound to the pillars with thick iron chains. No pulling at them would make it any better. The soldiers took stance in front of the door, and threw firebolts at it, but it wouldn't move. "Avatar Roku does not want you inside, it seems." The Sage smiled at the angry looking guy, who was named General Zhao. "Shut up!" the guy barked at him. "Can you please tell me now how you know me, and who I am, and such?" Kuzon tried again "The door won't open, so you will have to wait anyways and we have time to talk…" "Shut up! You won't fool me, child!" Zhao barked at him, sending a fire-wave his way. The chains hindering him to duck, Kuzon was hit by the wave. "Ohw!" he complained, looking down at his hit arm. "Leave him alone, you monster!" Katara screamed "It's not his fault he lost his memory! He's just trying to figure out who he is!" "So you indeed lost your memory, huh?" Zhao sneered, walking over to them, slowly, bending down a bit to be able to look him straight in the eye "Interesting… Well, since this is the case, I might refresh your memory a little bit, Zuko, Prince of the Firenation…" He smiled so evilly that it made Kuzon wince again.

Suddenly they heard something and the guards in front of the door, along with the reawaken Sages, took stance. Zhao turned away from his prisoners and walked back over to the door. "When these doors open, unleash all your firepower!" he orders his men. "How is Aang gonna make it out of this?" Katara whispered. "How are we gonna make it out of this?" Sokka complained. Then the door started glowing, like Aang had so many days ago at the Airtemple and steam came out from underneath the door. The light was so bright that they had to close their eyes and turn away. It even went brighter the more the door opened. "Ready? Fire!" Zhao cried, as the light faded and just two bright eye-shaped lights remain in the shadow of the room. Katara's cries for Aang nearly were swallowed by the following bursts of Fire by eleven Master-Firebenders, aiming at the door at once. But their fire suddenly whirled around and they could see a figure in midst all the flames. A figure of shadows and light. "Avatar Roku." the Sage on their side stated surprised.

Roku unleashed the fire back at the Firebenders, but also hit them, but surprisingly the fire didn't hurt them but melted the chains that held them to the pillars. The Sages and soldiers fled in fear from the ghost-like appearance. "Avatar Roku is going to destroy the temple!" the Sage on their side tried to over cry the screams of the fleeing and the rumble of the bursting stone "We have to get out of here!" "Not without Aang!" Katara decided. Suddenly the floor burst on several spots and Lava was shooting high in the air, like flowing pillars. The siblings ducked and embraced each other, while Kuzon simply stared at the appearance which suddenly calmed and then sucked all fog towards it, to leave only Aang behind, as it cleared. As Aang sank to his knees, his friends hurried over to catch his fall. The Sage was gone, as they helped Aang making his way out of the tower. Aang got his strength back quickly, but unluckily the temple was already badly damaged, making their flight somehow impossible.

Luckily Appa and Momo came flying towards them, right as they found themselves trapped between falling stones, a pool of Lava and a hole in the roof, leading deep down onto sharp rocks. As Appa took his place right underneath the hole in the roof, they climbed out of the hole and back to the safety of Appa's saddle. They left just in time. The temple started falling, as soon as Kuzon had fully landed on the saddle of the Bison. Hastily they took their leave. Carefully Kuzon removed his burnt shirt to take a better look at his still burning arm. Why had this Zhao-guy been so mean to him? "How did you get burnt?" Aang asked him. "Don't pity him." Sokka told Aang, pulling him back from Kuzon "We just learned that his father is the Firelord…"


	17. Chapter 11

"Don't be ridiculous, Sokka…" Aang smiled "How would a teenager prince end up on the other end of the world alone? Don't you think the Firelord would take better care of his own children?" "This Zhao-creep that attacked us, called him Prince Zuko…" Katara put in. Kuzon tensed, as he heard the name from her lips. Zhao hadn't triggered anything in him, by calling him that, but Katara sure did. Before his inner eye, faces appeared. Only few of them were looking friendly. The rest simply scared him. One of the faces that scared him he remembered from a dream he had, as they had been on their way to the Airtemple. The dream about the fireball. "Do you remember anything?" Aang asked him, as Kuzon finally could see clear again. "I saw faces…" Kuzon murmured "But I don't know who they are…" "So you are Zuko then…" Sokka commented. "Well, I guess…" Kuzon shrugged.

"That does not change anything." Aang decided "You are still our friend. And maybe this knowledge will come in handy one day." Sokka and Katara really didn't seem all too happy about this decision. "We now have other problems anyways…" Aang continued "Roku told me about a comet that will appear this summer. It will make the Firenation stronger than we could even imagine. So I have to master all four elements before the comet comes and defeat the Firelord." "That's a tight schedule…" Zuko sighed, now that they know his name, they could start using it. "So we really need to hurry now, getting to the Northpole…" "But there is still the problem with earth and fire… You said yourself you aren't a Master…" Sokka put in. "He will have to do, or do you think we can find any other Firebender willing to teach the Avatar?" Katara hissed at her brother.

Since they still were weeks away from the North-Pole, even if they would fly straight, which they weren't, Katara offered to teach Aang the little stuff she knew about Waterbending. Since they needed water to practice, they crawled to the edge of Appa's saddle to look for a suitable source. Soon later they landed near a river with a waterfall. It was nice and all, but… was there really time for that? Aang and Katara seemed overly excited, but Sokka was gloomy once more. Even more so, as Appa belly-splashed into the lake, soaking all of them. Aang was tripped down to his undies quickly, to follow Appa, but Katara reminded him that they were here for a reason. And Sokka got himself into cleaning Appa's feet, because he dared to ask what he was supposed to do, while they practiced waterbending. Zuko didn't ask. He planned on watching them, to maybe learn something. Maybe waterbending-moves could help with his own firebending.

Katara was showing Aang a really easy seeming move and went on on how long it took her to master it. Zuko kind of felt with her. Somehow he knew he had troubles learning new bending-stuff too. But it took Aang only seconds to bend an even bigger wave than Katara had been doing. Zuko saw how upset Katara was about that. The scene repeated itself with the second move she showed him, and Aang even had to show off with this one. And as the third move failed for Katara, but Aang showed absolutely no difficulties with it, Zuko saw the girl again in his mind, laughing at him. Aang seemed to be a natural in whatever he tried. Now Zuko really wasn't looking forward to teach this kid firebending at all. Into the bargain their supplies went down the river thanks to Aang's last move. So they had to find a city to buy new food.

The city they found themselves in was a harbour-city. There were all kind of people to find, most of them looking like you really wouldn't want to get into a fight with them. When Sokka confessed that they had only three copper pieces left, Aang pointed out that he had just spent a copper piece on a whistle. Zuko had just known he should have paid better attention… But he kind of had been more concerned with the siblings spending money on crap. As Aang blew into the whistle excitedly, it didn't even give a sound. So Katara made Aang give her the money. Not that it would make any difference now… And worse, as they went on, some guy who sure looked like one could trust him as far as one could throw him decided to talk to them, trying to lure them into his ship. He got Aang hooked quickly. "Aang, don't." Zuko hissed. But they guy already had an arm around Aangs shoulders and led him away from the others. The siblings followed sighing, and since Zuko wouldn't want to be left alone, he went after them.

The ship seemed to be loaded with wired things. None of them really seemed very useful. Another guy on the ship wanted to buy Momo, but Aang declined. Zuko just wanted to leave. He really felt they should get out of there as soon as possible. But then Katara found a waterbending-scroll, and he knew that they were caught on the ship, until she got it. As the wired guy who wanted to buy Momo told them that he got the scroll for free, Sokka figured out that they had to be pirates. It didn't hold Aang and Katara up from haggling about the scroll. They failed miserably though, of course. So finally Katara decided they should leave. Zuko felt glad about her change of mind, but somehow wondered why she would let go of this scroll so easily.

As soon as they were outside, the two other boys started to complain. Katara pointed out that she just wanted to get away from there, and soon they found out why. The guy who had made them enter the ship was running after them, calling out "Hey, you! Get back here!" And suddenly a whole bunch of pirates, all weapons in hand, came jumping out of the ship. "You stole the scroll, didn't you?" Zuko whispered to Katara. "Run!" Aang cried, as he realized they were in trouble. They started running as fast as they could, but the pirates were more, and they had weapons. They had to use bending to slow their followers down. As three of the guys cut them off, Zuko firebended at them, causing them to flee, leaving their weapons behind, including two blades, Zuko took. They kind of reminded him of something. As soon as they had air to breathe again, Aang opened his glider, telling them to hang on to him, and started to fly. It was completely impossible to get himself into the air with three people hanging from him, Zuko knew, so he didn't follow, as the siblings grabbed Aang's glider.

Zuko watched them gliding away, and then he climbed the next roof. Good thing he remembered the way they had come from. Using roofs as walkway, he hurried back to where they had come from. He also managed to liberate some food on his way. He was already out of the city as Aang landed next to him. "What do you think you're doing?" Aang asked him. "Preventing you to crash-land into the sea?" Zuko huffed "You wouldn't have made it." Aang stood quiet. "Hang on now, please…" he then said after a while. So they were back to their campsite at the river some minutes later. Katara was holding the scroll in her hands, as they landed. "Knew it…" Zuko muttered "They will try to get it back, you know…" "They won't find us…" Aang was sure. "Maybe not alone… But if they meet that creep Zhao, they might…" Zuko sighed.

Katara started practicing right away, making Aang hold the scroll for her, but all she did was hitting herself with her newly created water-whip. Sokka laughed at her, causing Katara to be grumpy. "Why can't I get this stupid move?" she cried out in desperation. Aang put the scroll down and went over to show her how it was done. Zuko sighed about that and went over to have a look at the scroll himself. The moves seemed similar to the Firebending-moves, but more fluid. He copied them from the paper, since no one was paying attention to him anyways, feeling the energy flow through his body, as he was taught to… He remembered being taught, but not by whom. Staying calm and focused, he first only copied the moves slowly, trying to concentrate on the energy flowing in his body, before he got fire involved. His concentration was broken though, as Katara started to yell at Aang.

As she realized what she had done, she decided to give the scroll to Aang, since he was better with it than her. Zuko promised himself to teach Katara something, once they had time and won't have the others around spying… as they set up camp, Zuko used the time to pull Katara aside. "I think I might be able to help you…" He told her. "You? Since when?" Katara grunted "Are you a waterbender now too?" "Uhm… No?" Zuko said "But… But I figured out that Firebending and Waterbending have similar moves… I guess you never had a teacher to tell you what you have to do, so…" "So you can teach me how to waterbend?!" Katara snapped. "No. I can tell you what helped me…" Zuko huffed "Only if you want, of course…" "Alright, hit me." Katara grunted. "See, I learned to practice the movements without bending first, just feeling the energy flow through my body, like that…" Zuko explained, repeating the water-whip move Katara had wanted to try out before. At first, Katara watched him, not looking all too happy, but as he had gone through the move three times, slowly, breathing deeply, her mimics started to soften, and finally she joined in.

"It works." She smiled, as suddenly a bubble of water rose out of the lake to her movements, and formed to a whip. "I did it!" Zuko simply smiled and turned to walk back to their campsite, but Katara caught his arm and kissed him. "Thank you." She said. He turned away from her quickly, as he felt his blood rising to his cheeks. Why would she do this all the time? She wouldn't release his arm though and walked back to the campsite with him. Aang and Sokka were already in their sleeping-bags, once they returned. "Good night, then…" Zuko said, finally being able to free his arm, and taking his sleeping-bag he went to search for a good spot to sleep.

As they woke up the next morning, though, Katara looked pretty tired. She sure was in a better mood than the day before, but she really, really looked tired. So she wasn't much help in packing their stuff together. But she managed to complain that they had to leave the lake so soon. "What is wrong with you?" Sokka complained "We are in a hurry, remember? We need to get to the Northpole…" "And we still have pirates on our heels…" Zuko added "We really better leave before they find us…" So they all climbed back on Appa and continued their journey.


	18. ad 11: Azula

"Your highness…" The servant who had to deliver the scroll to the Firelord this time was not really happy. "A letter from General Zhao, my Lord." He got out. The Firelord took the scroll from the red pillow with pointy fingers and unrolled it. His mimic darkened, as he read. "Get my daughter here." He then commanded. Reading the scroll again he shook his head. Had it been a mistake to leave Zuko alive? If it was true, what General Zhao wrote, they had to act quickly…

"You called, father?" The pretty girl didn't even wait for him to tell her to stand. She got up from her kneeling right after she kneeled down. As far as she knew, she was the only hope for the Firenation now anyways with her dear brother passed away. "General Zhao had found your brother…" the Firelord said "Obviously he dared to betray his home and bond with the Avatar." "Zuzu… Zuzu is alive?" was all the girl was thinking about. That this idiot would bond with the enemy sooner or later she had been sure about, the moment he got banished. Since she had gotten the news that his ship had gone missing and they believed him dead, she had thought about him as one problem less she had in her life. "Apparently…" her father replied "Zhao also wrote that the fate of my dear brother and the rest of the crew is unknown. Prince Zuko had seemed to have lost his memory and didn't even knew his own name, on encounter, but despite the reminder of his task and heritage he insisted on helping the Avatar and turn against his own family." "You can't let him do this, father." The girl put in. "That's why I called for you, Princess Azula…" Firelord Ozai smiled "I need you to find your brother and bring him home…"


	19. Chapter 12

They had landed once again to gather food. They had to gather it now, since they were finally out of money. So as they had gathered what they needed, Momo was missing. So they had to go search for him. He was not far off in some sort of cage, most likely traps for the local wildlife as a food-source to someone. So someone was living here. Zuko wasn't sure if it was a good or a bad thing. Aang didn't really bother with such thoughts. He used airbending to get up there to bring Momo's cage down. But there were two more cages, holding some sort of monkeys. "Free them too…" Zuko told Aang, and Aang nodded and went back up to get the two monkeys.

Sokka didn't want to wait that long though, and throwing his boomerang, he cut the robes the cages were hung on. Zuko rolled his eyes, but the Monkey's weren't hurt and went their way. Sokka looked at the cages closely and stated that these were Firenation-traps, one could tell from the metal-work. Zuko though couldn't tell from that. What was the difference between Firenation-metal and other Nation metal? "We better get moving." Sokka decided and so they went back to pack their stuff. But as they started to put their luggage on Appa, Sokka interrupted them. "No flying this time." He decided "The Firenation keeps finding us because they spot Appa." Sokka went on "He's just too noticeable." "But we can't get to the North-Pole by foot, can we?" Zuko pointed out "Despite… it would take forever…"

"My instincts tell me we should play it safe this time and walk." Sokka said. "Who made you the boss?" Katara snapped. "I'm not the boss." Sokka answered "I'm the leader." "You're the leader? But your voice still crack." Katara laughed. Zuko really didn't get what that had to do with anything, but it was best not to go in between sibling-rivalry. "I'm a warrior, so I'm the leader." Sokka went on. "If anyone's the leader, it's Aang. I mean, he IS the Avatar…" Katara pointed out. "Are you kidding? He is just a goofy kid." Sokka complained, and Aang, seemingly having to prove him right, was just hanging upside down from one of Appa's horns. "He's right." Appa stated. "Why do you boys always think that someone has to be the leader?" Katara huffed. "Hey, only you and Sokka were arguing over the 'leader'-thing…" Zuko finally stepped in "The rest of us didn't even bother."

But he was ignored anyways. "I bet you wouldn't be so bossy, if you'd have kissed a girl." Katara went on. "I've kissed a girl. You just haven't met her." Sokka gave back. "Who? Gran Gran? I've met Gran Gran." Katara teased. "No! Besides Gran Gran." Sokka complained "Look, my instincts tell me we have a better chance of slipping through on foot, and a leader has to trust his instincts." "Ok, we try it your way, oh wise leader." Katara finally gave in. "Who knows?" Aang grinned, already having shouldered a great deal of their luggage "Walking might be fun."

"Walking stinks!" he decided soon afterwards. Zuko wondered why they carried their entire luggage, despite having a giant Bison walking next to them. Since they hadn't paid any attention to him, he had climbed up on Appa's head anyways and let himself be carried. Running around still tired him a lot, and he kind of knew he would need his strength soon enough. "How do people go anywhere without a flying bison?" Aang went on. "I don't know Aang…" Katara answered "Why don't you ask Sokka's instincts. They seem to know everything…" "Haha, very funny…" Sokka stated. "I'm tired carrying this pack." Aang moaned. "Do you know whom you should ask to carry it for a while?" Katara smiled "Sokka's instincts!" Man, Zuko was glad right now to not having any siblings around. They were horrible. "You do realize we have a giant bison following us…" he asked, jumping down from Appa's head "Right? You don't have to carry anything…. But do it your way, I'm just saying…"

He was stared at by six eyes at once, and none of the faces they belonged too seemed very happy about his comment. "What?" Zuko asked. "Couldn't you have said this before?!" Aang cried out in desperation, flinging his pack onto Appa's saddle. Sokka and Katara let their packs drop in unison. Sokka looked like he would very much like to punch something and Katara was not looking any more relaxed than her brother. "You wouldn't listen to me as I pointed that out in the beginning…." Zuko put in "So it's not my fault… You have been busy arguing about leadership…" Aang bended the rest of their luggage up onto Appa's saddle as well. "Alright…" he sighed "Let's go on…"

They went on, but soon came to bushes, where Sokka walked right through, and the others followed, finding themselves right in the middle of a Firenation-camp. The soldiers stared at them and didn't move, until Aang cried out "RUN!" That was when all the soldiers suddenly jumped up and drew their weapons or went into fighting-stance. A Fireblast hit the bushes they had just come from, setting Sokka's shirt on fire. Zuko bended it out and went into fighting-stance himself. So did Katara and Aang, but the soldiers were closing in. "If you let us pass, we promise not to hurt you." Sokka turned to the soldiers, causing Zuko to smile. What was he talking about? They were roasted already. This was a firenation-camp full of soldiers… and they were just four kids including three benders where only one could be considered a Masterbender. "You promise not to hurt us?" the leader smiled, but suddenly winced and fell over. "Nice work Sokka, how did you do that?" Aang asked.

"Wasn't him." Zuko said, wondering if the guy was dead or just unconscious. "Look!" Katara cried, pointing at a lone figure standing high up a tree branch. The figure pulled out two sabres of some sort and used them to swing himself off the tree and onto two of the soldiers. Then he took out the next two by grabbing their ankles with his wired weapons and pulling them over. "Down you go." The guy smiled, and while Katara, Sokka and Aang were still staring, he deflected the attack of another soldier. Zuko decided to use the confusion to slip away and join into battle. He wouldn't stand around getting rescued by just another kid which just happened to have neat weapons on him. What for had he liberated the two daggers from the pirates anyways?

And then more kids joined in, falling from the trees or shooting arrows down from branches Also Katara and Aang finally joined in with their bending and Sokka tried to make use of his boomerang, though was outsmarted every time he tried so, by the guy who more or less saved their asses. Zuko tried to stay away from that creep. He didn't trust the guy. But the soldiers were surprisingly easy to defeat without using bending at all. He only fought with his knifes, though he would have preferred bigger weapons. Double-Dual swords would have been nice. But well, he would have to do with what he had at the time being. As another soldier went onto the guy with a lance though, the guy struggled a bit, and being too far away, Zuko used Firebending to hit the wooden handle of the weapon. It fell to dust without doing any harm.

The fight was over as suddenly as it had started. Who still was able to get on his feet, left the camp in a hurry. "You just took out a whole army almost single-handed…" Aang praised the guy. "Army?" Sokka complained "They were only like twenty guys." "My name is Jet, and these are my Freedom-Fighters." The guy introduced himself and the kids with him. "Sneers, Longshot, Smellerbee, The Duke and Pipsqueak." Jet went on, pointing at the persons being named. "Hehehe, Pipsqueak, that's a funny name!" Aang stated, walking over to the smallest of the group. But the giant next to the kid bent down to him, growling: "You think my name is funny?" "It's hilarious!" Aang smiled, causing the giant to bark out with laughter, slapping Aang on the shoulder, causing the Avatar to fall to the ground.

They started to search the camp for usable stuff and so did Zuko. Maybe he could find something useful, like food, or weapons. The group started to load all useable on a cart to bring it back to their hideout. "You guys have a hideout?" Aang asked, sounding excited, so Jet offered them to see it, and Katara was agreeing at once. So they went on through the woods, together with the Freedom Fighters, until they reached… well, the place when Jet said "We're here." Which was exactly no where at all, because it simply looked the same. Until you looked up, that was. "Where? There's nothing here." Sokka commented, since he hadn't looked up. "Hold this." Jet said, handing him a sling hanging down from a tree. "Why?" Sokka asked, taking the sling "What does this do?" As soon as he had ended his question he was pulled up by the sling so quickly that no one could even think about interfering. Zuko then knew he wouldn't take anything from this guy ever. "Aang?" Jet said, handing Aang another sling, but Aang decided he would get up on his own and bended his way up.

"Grab hold of me Katara." Jet said, holding on to the sling, reaching out for the watertribe-girl. Obviously they had introduced themselves while he had joined the Freedom-Figfhters on searching the tents. And they hadn't introduced him, for Jet had pretended he wasn't even there the whole time. Well, better so anyways. Katara took Jet's offered hand and he pulled her close, holding her tight around her waist, and up they went. Zuko followed with the rest of the gang, as he had figured how they did it correctly. He was not eager to fall and break something, so observing was the securest way. Once up he could see a whole village built up in the trees. There were a lot more children there than had been with Jet at the camp. "It's beautiful." He heard Katara say somewhere near. "It's beautiful and most important Firenation can't find us here." Jet answered. "They'd love to find you, wouldn't they Jet." Smellerbee's voice joined in.

"Why does the Firenation wanna find you?" Katara asked, as they walked away. "I guess you can say I've been causing them a little trouble…" Jet explained "See, they took over a nearby earthkingdom-town some years back…" "We've been ambushing their troop, cutting off their supply-lines and do anything we can to and doing anything we can to mess with them…" Pipsqueaks voice added. He now figured they were right above him, so he followed their voices. "One day we'll drive the Firenation out of here for good and free that town." Jet continued. "That's so brave…" Katara said, sounding odd. Something was going on with her. If he wouldn't know better he would guess she'd have a crush on that Jet-guy. "hey, nothing is braver than a guy in a tree-house…" Sokka popped in. "Don't pay any attention to my brother." Katara sighed. "No problem, he probably had a rough day." Jet answered. Then Jet went on on how they ended up here, and Zuko figured he had run into a dead end with no other choice than to climb up or down a tree with the help of wooden balks.

They had a feast once more, making Zuko wonder how these kids got all the stuff they had. Probably from the Firenation-troops they high jacked. Then Jet got on the table starting to make a speech on how they had another defeat against the Firenation-swines. Zuko did his best to ignore him. The others cheered as he went on how the tiny one named "the Duke" brought down one soldier. The kid climbed onto the table, raising his arms and letting himself being celebrated. "So the Firenation thinks they don't have to worry about a couple of kids hiding in the trees…" Jet went on, as the group has calmed down again "Maybe they're right…" he went on, taking a sip from his cup to give his followers time to Boo to that. "Or maybe…" Jet then went on "They are dead-wrong!" His followers started cheering. Zuko rolled his eyes. This guy managed to manipulate a bunch of kids, how great…

Jet got back down from the table, placing himself in-between Katara and Sokka. "Nice speech." Katara smiled at him. "Thanks." Jet said "By the way, I was really impressed by you and Aang. That was some great bending I saw there today…" "Well, he's great." Katara replied blushing "He's the Avatar. I could use some more training." "Avatar, huh?" Jet grinned "Very nice. So I might know a way that Aang and you could help in our struggle." Why would that stupid girl tell a stranger that Aang was the Avatar? Was she crazy now? "We have no time though…" Zuko put in "We have to get to the North Pole as soon as possible." "Who are you then?" Jet asked, turning towards him. "He's with us." Katara explained "His name is Zuko and he is a great bender too." "A bender, so?" Jet asked, starring right into Zuko's eyes "Now what Element might that be?" "He's a Firebender." Aang answered far too willingly "But he's not an evil one. He's really nice, you know…"

Jet's face darkened and he decided to return to ignoring Zuko. "So, will you help us?" he turned back to Katara. "Unfortunately we have to leave tonight." Sokka jumped in. "Sokka, you're kidding me…" Jet whined "I needed you on an important mission tomorrow." His words made Zuko shiver. It was less what the guy said but how he said it. It was reminding Zuko about something and it made his inner alarm system ring. "What mission?" Sokka asked. So the spell of that evil tree-witch boy had worked. Zuko sighed desperately as Jet smiled, putting an arm around Sokka, telling him about what he had planned. So they stood overnight. Zuko couldn't sleep though. He didn't trust this kid Jet and he wouldn't let himself be caught unprepared.

The next morning he though followed Sokka and Jet secretly. He had to find outr more about this creep. So he better stuck around him. Even if that meant hearing more insults and stuff about Firenation. They sat on the lower branches of the trees over the road that was passing beneath. Then Jet imitated some kind of bird, and other kids appeared on the trees on the opposite side of the road. They also answered with bird-calls. Sokka rammed his knife into the tree-trunk, explaining that it would intensify vibrations. He held his ear close to the handle of his knife and then he whispered that someone was approaching. As Jet asked on how many, Sokka said he thought it was just one. So Jet gave another bird-imitation towards the other group. "Good work, Sokka." He then said "Ready your weapon."

Approaching was indeed one person, an old man, leaned on a cane. "Wait!" Sokka called out to Jet "False alarm! He's just an old man." But Jet drew his weapons anyways and jumped in the oldtimer's way. "What are you doing in our woods, you leech." He hissed at the old one. "Please, sir. I'm just a traveller." The old one said, giving way as Jet stomped closer. But Jet pushed the old man's cane away with his hook-sword. Enough was enough, Zuko decided and jumped down himself. As the old one turned to flee, he ran straight into Pipsqueak, who sent him to the floor roughly. "Stop!" Zuko shouted, stepping in between the Freedom-Fighters, closing in on the guy. "Let him go!" "I guessed so." Jet hissed at him "You are no better than the rest of them." "You're not better than anyone." Zuko gave back "Who would really be so evil to jump an old man? Not even Firenation is THAT evil! Only you are!" "Please, let me go! Have mercy!" the old one squealed up from the floor. Zuko offered him a hand, helping the guy up. "Traitor!" Jet hissed, flinging his sword down at Zuko and the old man, but Zuko parried the hit with his newly found duel-swords. "Leave him alone, coward." He hissed "Let's settle this man to man, or are you too chicken to take on someone who is about your strength."

As the old guy started another try to get away, Pipsqueak caught him, and Smellerby started to search the man by Jet's command. That was when Sokka jumped in. "Let him go, Jet! He's just an old man!" "Have you forgotten how the Firenation killed your mother?!" Jet barked at Sokka "Remember why you fight!" "This does not feel right!" Sokka replied. "It's what has to be done." Jet said gravely "Now let's get out of here!" He pushed Sokka aside and walked away, while Pipsqueak and Smellerbee followed him, pushing Zuko out of their way. They had taken the old guy's bag. "Come on, Sokka!" Jet called out to him, and Sokka followed them, leaving Zuko and the old man behind. Zuko gut up and helped the old man up once more. "I'm sorry…" he sighed "You better go home. And tell the others to avoid this wood…" The old man got up and hurried away, not spending one more look at Zuko. Sighing Zuko sank back to his knees. Now would Katara believe him on that? Should he even try, or should he hide and wait until the others came to their senses?

He decided to reunite with the others. As he arrived back up in the tree-village he happened to run by a tent, where he could hear Jet and Sokka arguing inside. "Sokka, you told them what happened but you didn't tell them that the guy was Firenation?" Jet stated. "No, he conveniently left that part out." Katara answered instead of her brother. "Fine!" Sokka growled "But even if he was Firenation, he was a harmless civilian." "He was an Assassin, Sokka." Jet said, and Zuko heard metal rammed into wood. "See, there is a compartment for poison in the knife…" Jet went on "He was sent to eliminate me. You helped save my life, Sokka." "I knew there was an explanation." Katara seemed relieved. "I didn't see any knife." Sokka stated. "That's because he was concealing it." Jet explained. "See, Sokka, I'm sure you just didn't noticed the knife." Katara pointed out to her brother. "There was no knife!" Sokka hissed "I'm going back to the hut, packing my things." "Tell me you guys aren't leaving yet…" Jet said, as Zuko saw Sokka leaving the tent and hurried to catch up with him.

"There was no knife." He said, as he had reached Sokka. "I know that myself." Sokka barked "But Katara and Aang won't believe it. "So what now?" Zuko asked "Should we warn the village?" "Are you crazy?!" Sokka hissed "I won't protect any Firenation-people! Jet is right! They killed my mother! They are not worth the effort." "This old man didn't kill your mother." Zuko pointed out "Nor did anyone in this village, most likely. I'm going to warn them to avoid the woods." "Fine, knock yourself out…" Sokka growled. Zuko shrugged and made his way downwards. He knew it was risky, though he really didn't expect an ambush. There were five or more people upon him as soon as his feet touched ground. His try to fight back was cut short by a punch to his head, sending him into darkness.

It was early morning he was pulled out and was dragged along with a group Jet was leading. He though was kept out of hearing-range was Jet explained his plan to his people. Unluckily his vision was not nearly good enough to read Jet's lips. Jet and the others were just blurs on a cliff. He though recognized Sokka who was pulled in front of Jet by two blurs. He recognized him because of being a blue blur. Jet talked to Sokka a while, and then they brought Sokka over to him. "Hi there." Zuko huffed. "Where have you been the whole night?" Sokka asked. "No talking!" Smallerbee hissed at them, and Pipsqueak dragged both of them on. "Zuko, they're planning on destroying the village." Sokka whispered to him after a while they had been pushed and pulled through the forest. "We need to warn the people." "And how would you suggest doing this?" Zuko asked, equally quiet. "Well, can't you… Firebend us free, or something?" Sokka suggested. "I didn't want to hurt them…" Zuko shrugged. "They will kill innocent people." Sokka hissed.

"Quiet you!" Smellerbee hissed, and pushed them into their spines roughly. "Now!" Sokka hissed and Zuko did his best to keep the Flame in his hand as small as possible, but still powerful enough to purn through the string that bound his wrists together behind his back. Pulling his hands apart quickly broke the rope and swirling into a Firebending-move he knocked out their capturers before they even realized what was going on. He freed Sokka's hands and they hurried back towards the village together. "Hurry!" Sokka called out to him, as they rushed down the path to the town as fast as they could "We might not have much time!" "I'm trying!" Zuko cried back.

They came to the town out of breath. "Hey, you!" Zuko tapped one of the next villagers they found on the shoulders "You need to abandon the village. Now! The dam is about to break." "What?" the guy asked irritated. "Trust me." Zuko begged "They want to blow up the dam to wipe out all Firenation, but they do not care whom else they kill in the progress." "Hey, that is the kid who helped me!" a voice called out and the old man they had encountered in the woods hurried towards them. "They are going to blow up the dam!" Zuko repeated "get all people out of here now!" Sokka and Zuko helped carrying children and aiding people who were weak on their feet to get out of the water's reach. They were about done when they heard the tweeting. "That's Jet…" Sokka whispered, picking up two toddlers. "Alright! Hurry!" Zuko nodded, hurrying to help a Family with a small girl.

An explosion nearly pulled them from their feet. Handing Sokka the girl he had just carried up the acclivity Zuko turned back to return to the village. "Zuko! No!" Sokka called out, helping the last Refugees up to their gathering point. "I still saw someone back there!" Zuko called out to him. The roar of the water got louder every moment. Zuko picked up the baby that was lying in the middle of the village, as the waves were to be seen through the entrance-arc. He used Firebending to get up the next roof with the baby in his arms, and run from there as fast as he possibly could. He managed to reach the gathering-point just in time for Sokka to pull him out just before the water was reaching them. A woman was ripping the baby out of his arms, pressing it to her bosom happily. "We made it." Sokka smiled. Zuko just managed to nod. His chest hurt so much, he was sure it would burst any minute. He felt his hands and legs shaking.

They found Aang and Katara just to hear Jet say: "This was a victory, Katara, remember that. The Firenation is gone and this valley will be safe." "It will be safe!" Sokka called, sitting on Appa's head, while Zuko was still gasping for air, hoping the pain would stop soon and his limbs would stop shivering. "Without you." Sokka continued. "Sokka!" Katara cried out happily. "We warned the villagers of your plan." Sokka went on "Just in time." "What?!" Jet cried out. "At first they didn't believe us, but the old man you attacked believed us, and urged everyone to trust us, and we got everyone out in time…" "Sokka you fool!" Jet cried in rage. Zuko wondered why he hadn't attacked them yet, so he lifted his head to see Jet pinned against a tree by ice frozen around his body and he had to smile. "We could have freed this valley!" Jet cried on, as Aang and Katara joined them on Appa. "Who would be free?" Sokka asked "Everyone would be dead." "You traitor!" Jet hissed. "No Jet, you became the traitor when you stopped protecting innocent people." Sokka replied, so Jet turned to Katara pleading her to help him, but Katara turned her back on him. So they left Jet behind, frozen to a tree, finally returning to their way towards the North-Pole.


	20. Chapter 13

"Good bending…" Zuko complimented her, as soon as they had reached traveling-height. "I bet he'd never forget this encounter…" "I'm so glad you two managed to warn everyone…" Katara sighed "From now on we will listen to what you have to say." "How come you went to the town instead of the dam?" Aang asked. "Let me guess, your instincts told you." Katara joked. "Sometimes they're right…" Sokka smiled. "Uhm, Sokka, you know we are going the wrong way, right?" Aang laughed "And sometimes they are wrong…" Sokka said, pulling Appa around. "Are you better yet?" Katara turned back to Zuko. Zuko simply nodded and smiled "I guess I'm out of practice…" he shrugged.

The next time they made rest it ended just in another sibling-fight, so Zuko went to gather supplies and Firewood if he could find some. He wasn't eager to be pulled into that again. As he returned Aang had settled the twist and the tent was set up and they had a decent amount of Firewood ready. Zuko set it aflame and stored what he had found with the rest of their supplies. So they had had a nice rest when they got up the next morning. Aang showed them yet another thing he seemed excited about, the Great Divide, the largest canyon on earth. Sokka wasn't really impressed, but Zuko had to wonder how it was made. There would have been forces at hand he could not possibly imagine. He was sure he didn't want to meet whatever did that. Sokka though was eager to get their journey along.

"Hey! If you are going for the canyon-guide, I was here first!" a guy shouted, pushing Sokka aside, hurrying towards them. "Uh, Canyon-guide, sounds informative." Katara said, actually sounding interested. "Oh Agni…" Zuko murmured to himself. Not another boring lecture about something unimportant. "Believe me, he is more than a tour guide!" the guy went on "He's an earthbender and the only way in and out of the canyon is with his help and he is taking MY tribe across next." Sokka made signs that the guy was crazy behind his back. "Calm down, we know you're next." He then stated. "You wouldn't be so calm if the Firenation destroyed your home and forced you to flee!" the guy went on. For Zuko that guy kind of reminded him about something from firenation, though. Especially the ways he wore his hair. Most of the pictures of faces he saw in his dreams and flashbacks had their hail similar to this guy held up in a top-knot with a golden circle.

"My whole tribe has to walk thousands of miles to the capital city of Ba Sing Se." the guy went on. "You're a refugee." Katara called out, as if that was something good or exciting to be. "Huh, tell me something I don't know…" the guy huffed. As a pack of people drew close, Katara asked if that was the tribe of the guy but he shouted "It most certainly is not! That's the Zhang Tribe, a bunch of low-life thieves. They've been the enemy of my tribe for a hundred years." Then he whistled and called: "Hey Zhangs! I'm saving a spot for my tribe, so don't even think of stealing it!" "Where are the rest of the Gan Jin? Still tidying up their campside?" a huge female was in his face a blink of an eye later. "Yes!" the first guy answered "But they sent me ahead of them to safe a spot." "I didn't know the canyon-guide takes reservations…" the female smiled.

They went on tossing insults at each other's heads until the canyon-guide appeared, bending boulders out of his way. "Sorry you had to wait, youngsters." He stated "Who is ready to cross the canyon?" "Uhm, one of them, I think…" Katara answered, pointing at the fighting people. "I was here first, the Gan Jin guy cried, hurrying towards the guide "My party's on the way." "I can't guide people who aren't here…" the guide pointed out. "I guess you guys have to make the trip tomorrow." The female smiled, leading her tribe to the canyon-entrance. "Wait! Here they come!" the first guy cried, smiling triumphantly pointing to a group of equally clad people drawing near. They made the impression of a monk's group out for an education-travel. At once the fighting started again, pointing out that one group had sick people and the other having old people, who needed shelter.

"Well, Aang, wanna put your peace-making skills to the test?" Katara turned to Aang. "I don't know." The Avatar sighed, but Katara wouldn't have his input. "Listen up!" she cried "This is the Avatar. And if you give him a chance I'm sure he can come up with a compromise that makes everyone happy." "Uhm… You could share the earthbender and travel together…" Aang suggested. But the two tribes both disagreed, deciding they would rather be taken by the Firenation than travel with each other. So Aang finally had enough and decided to offer Appa to fly their sick and elderly across, and them accompanying the two tribes down the canyon. Zuko sighed and rolled his eyes, as the two tribes agreed. So soon later the sick and elderly were stored on Appa, and Aang took his farewell from the bison for some time.

"Alright, here comes the bad news." The guide turned to them "No food allowed in the canyon for it attracts dangerous predators." Again the tribes started to argue, but the guy told them that they would manage to go a day without food. They could take the choice between being hungry or being eaten. They were given 10 minutes to either eat their food or leave it behind. Zuko took the hint to store their supplies on Appa's saddle together with the sick and elderly, hoping that some would be left, once they arrived at the other side. The two groups started to dig into their food. Then Aang gave Appa the sign to fly over. "There goes our quick way over…" Sokka mumbled, digging into an apple.

Soon later their journey through the canyon began. First came the guide, then Aang and his friends, then the Gan Jin tribe, followed by the Zhang tribe. The way was narrow any uneven, and broken on several spots. This problem was easily managed by the guide, who simply bended blocks of rock out of the wall, creating a bridge over the holes in the path. Then the guy stopped and started to blabber about how canyons were formed. His theories were about some monsters that have eaten the earth, so Zuko decided to not listen any longer. He really didn't want to know. Suddenly the earth rumbled and stones came down the canyon-walls, but the guide bended them away from them easily.

They finally made it to the bottom of the canyon. The guide told them to stand clear off the wall and took a huge bolder to destroy the bridges he made on their way down. He explained he did that so they couldn't be followed and would be safe now, as out of the sinking dust created by the smashed stones, came a creature as big as Appa, grabbing the guide. Sokka attacked the thing with his boomerang, causing the monster to drop the guide but now heading for him. Katara used Waterwhip to safe her brother, but made the thing only angrier. Aang sent it away from her with Airbending, but it came back, so Aang used some stronger bending to snap it back up to the walls. "What was that?" Aang asked, turning to the guide who still was where the thing had had dropped him. "Canyon-crawler…" the guide got out, but he seemed really hurt. "And there's sure to be more." "Your arms!" Katara said "They're broken!" "Without my arms I can't do bending." The guide sighed. "We're trapped in here…" Aang realized.

Zuko helped Katara fixing the guide the best they could with what they had. Which was not much. "I thought the only reason we had to ditch the food was so we don't have to deal with things like the canyon-crawlers." Sokka pointed out, causing the two tribes to accuse each other of disobeying the rules, ending in them to no longer wanting to travel together. The guide simply panicked and started to cry he wouldn't want to die in the canyon and become part of the food-chain. So Aang had to take the lead, since he seemed to be the only one the tribes would listen to. So he told them to split up and sent them to different paths, which were divided by some rock-wall. That seemed to work and the tribes split up into the paths. He also told Sokka to stay with the Zhangs and Katara to join the Gan Jins. Zuko was free to follow whomever he would want to, while Aang would stay on the wall to have an eye on both groups. They also were tasked to find out what the problem between the two tribes was.

Zuko decided to stick with Katara, since they also took the canyon-guy with them. As they had put up their tents and the guide had been stored in a tent to rest they gathered around a fire like for meditation. But suddenly they all pulled food out of their sleeves, starting to eat. "Would you care for some bread?" their leader asked, offering a piece of bread to them. "So it was you guys who had food!" Katara cried out. "Oh come now! You really think that tribe of thieves isn't smuggling food?" the leader hissed "Why should my people go hungry while the sneaky Zhangs are stuffing their faces?" "Well…" Katara said "I guess it's ok when everyone's doing it…" "You broke a guy's arms!" Zuko hissed "With your recklessness you drew the canyon-crawler near and now a person is hurt!" "Calm down!" the leader hissed at him "It would have come anyways for the Zhangs…" "I don't care what the Zhangs did or didn't do!" Zuko hissed and jumped up "You violated the rules, bringing us all in danger!" With that he stomped away, trying to find his luck with the other tribe.

As Zuko arrived at the Zhang-camp though, he witnessed as their leader offered Sokka some meat. Sokka didn't even hesitate and dug in. Angrily Zuko made his way to the wall, and sank down next to it. This couldn't simply be true! These stupid people! Then he noticed a movement in the Gan Jin's camp and from the limping of the figure he knew it was the guide, so he decided to follow him. The guide led him up to Aang. "Both of them brought food." Zuko sighed, sinking down next to Aang. "They did?" Aang asked sounding not happy at all. "They are eating right now…" Zuko sighed "Let's hope they eat it all up…" They went on the next morning and Zuko decided to accompany Aang and the guide on the wall now. On their way Aang tried to get the story of the hundred year fight between the tribes out of the siblings. Worse, they started fighting again, but Aang stopped it and ordered them to get everyone together at the canyon-wall. Then he took off with his glider.

As Aang gathered all around him, asking them to think about a way up the wall, the tribes started fighting again, drawing the siblings in as well, this time. Aang interrupted them telling them that harsh words wouldn't solve problems, but action would, causing them to draw their weapons. "I guess they misunderstood…" Zuko murmured. Their leaders went into fighting-positions and decided to fight to the death, to bring an end to their fight. Before Aang could do something against it, the two tribe-chiefs started fighting. But Aang interrupted them with Airbending, sending both of them flying back including their groups, revealing that they indeed had far more food with them than they would have even been able to eat on one day.

Right as Aang had finished his outburst on how selfish they had all been, Zuko heard some wired sound, and looking up to see what it was he discovered canyon crawlers coming down the wall in dozens. "Aang!" he shouted out, pointing up to the monsters. Panic broke out, causing everyone to ran away screaming, searching cover behind stones and walls. There were so many! Aang started to airbend at them, so Zuko used his Firebending to keep them at bay. But they ignored them, just aiming for the food. "Aang!" Zuko murmured, as he was pulled up and away from the monsters by the Avatar, "The food…" "What?" Aang asked, putting him down on a bolder safely. "We can use the bags of food to capture their muzzles!" Zuko pointed out "So they can't bite anymore…" "They could carry us up the walls!" Aang grinned "That's genius!" With that he jumped down, right into the mass of crawlers fighting over food. "Everybody!" Aang cried, holding up one of the sacks of food "Watch me! Do what I do!"

And with that he tossed a bit of food on the crawlers, causing one to charge at him. Holding out the sack of food, Aang jumped up, right as the monster reached him, putting the sack over its muzzle and taking seat on the crawler's neck, not letting go off the sack. So soon everyone ways trying to catch their own crawler, and who wouldn't would find someone to share a crawler with. They would even all work together to catch the monsters. Aang bound a pack of food onto his staff and holding it in front of his crawler he made the crawler go up the wall. And the rest of the monsters followed them willingly. Zuko had managed to catch a crawler as well, and taking the poor guide with him, they followed Aang's crawler up the canyon-wall. It was a scary thing to ride up a wall vertically, but they made it without falling. Then on the top they all got off the crawlers and Aang tossed the bag of food back into the canyon, causing the crawlers to follow it.

But as it just seemed the two tribes would finally be friends again, they decided that they couldn't rewrite history and that they had to fight on about a hundred year old story forever and they drew their swords again, stating their long dead ancestors were to be revenged. Aang finally hearing the names said he would knew the guys, and that he had been there the questionable day. He went on telling that the ancestors had been eight year old twins playing a game, explaining the unjust the two tribes were whining about by simple game-rules. So the tribes decided to forget the past and travel on together. The guide decided to follow them to Ba Sing Se. And as the tribes had left, Aang confessed he had made the whole thing up. Katara smiled and said it was wrong, though she obviously was not mad, while Zuko already climbed Appa to dig out some food. At least he and Aang hadn't had food a whole day…


	21. Chapter 14

One morning, after they had just spent a calm night at a beach, they discovered that they were out of food again. So Katara decided they had to go to a market. They had not much luck at the market, since they were out of money. "Out of food and out of money." Sokka sighed "Now what are we supposed to do?" "You could get a job, smart guy…" Katara suggested. Right in that moment they noticed an old man and an old lady arguing. She asked him not to go out fishing, since there was a terrible storm coming. But the man pointed out it was a nice day and there was no cloud and no wind to be seen anywhere. "Maybe we should find some shelter?" Aang suggested, but Sokka was on the old man's side.

The arguing of the couple went on, until they heard the man say: "Then I'll find a new fish holder and pay him double what you get." Sokka took his chance to head over to offer himself for the newly open position. He got hired right away. But as he was still packing clouds were forming, turning the sky pitch-black. But Sokka wouldn't listen to their input, and the old man would come into Aang's face about being the Avatar and turning his back on the world for one hundred years. Katara was starting to defend him, but Aang backed away, took his glider and set off. Katara hurried to Appa, to catch up with Aang, leaving Zuko behind. He sighed and decided he could find something to get them money for while he was left there.

As soon as the rain started he was kind of busy, for the people suddenly realized that they had some holes in their roofs or some leaky windows. He didn't get much for it, but it was better than nothing, and since he had nowhere to go, he would have gotten soaked anyways. He got about one silver-coin for every house he repaired and five copper-coins for every time he helped to carry goods into safety from the rain. Once he even gained a gold-coin for helping a salesman saving his stand from being blown away by the wind, which gained strength quickly. "The old woman was right…" Zuko finally murmured to himself, staring out to the ocean where higher and higher waves were forming. "Sokka is in danger…"

"Hey, you!" the old woman from the fisherman's boat approached him, as he was just once again out to find a task he could do. "You are with the Avatar, aren't you?" "Well, they left me here…" Zuko sighed. "My husband is still out there! And the storm is becoming a Thyphoon!" the woman said. "I'm sure Aang will be willing to help you." Zuko replied "But I don't know where he is." "I think I can help you with that…" the woman said. So they went through the rain up the mountain towards a little cave. There they found Katara and Aang. As Katara heard that Sokka had not come back yet, they decided to look for the fisherman and Sokka. The wife stood back in the cave. So soon later they were on the way out into the storm to find the fisher-boat.

Not that it would make any difference, but heading right through a gigantic wave was not very much to any of their liking. Aang airbended a bubble around them, so that they wouldn't get soaked with salt-water too, but it still was kind of scary. It was far from the shore where they finally found them, and then lightning hit the pole and sent it falling. Aang used airbending to split it apart so it wouldn't smash anyone. With the help of a rope Aang pulled Sokka and the old man onto Appa. Just in time, for a giant wave was lifting the boat high over their heads, swallowing Appa and all of them, before they could flee. Zuko and all the others grabbed to Appa to not be washed away, but now they were soaked with saltwater. Then Aang airbended a giant bubble around them, and not only Zuko was happy to be able to breathe again.

They came back to the surface right in the eye of the storm, using its tunnel to escape and fly to safety. They arrived at the cave wet but alive, much to the old woman's joy. Aang dried them all up with airbending. Sokka got "paid" with one fish, but Aang got an apology from the old man, since if he hadn't gone missing for one hundred years, he wouldn't be here right now, and neither would be the old man, because he realized that without Aang he would have drowned in the storm. And also the sky finally cleared up and so they were free to head on. Zuko also showed them his earnings, and so they tried their luck on the market again, stocking up their supplies.


	22. Chapter 15

It seemed like the storm had left them with a price to pay. Sokka had caught a cold, being the only one of them who couldn't bend himself dry, or warm himself up on his own, and he had been too proud until now to tell them. Now he was absolutely no use at all. So they had to land and find shelter, which they found in a ruin of some long forgotten house. He started talking nonsense and running a high fever. Aang was out searching the place, while Zuko had found a pot of some sort, heating water in it over a fire. Though Aang returned without the stuff they needed for the tea Sokka was needing. Instead he had brought a map. There was a village painted on it on the top of one of the nearer mountain, so Aang guessed they might have a cure for Sokka there. But Katara pointed out that Sokka was in no condition to travel but needed more rest. But then she started coughing too.

"That's how Sokka started yesterday!" Aang pointed out "Now look at him! He thinks he is an earthbender!" So Aang decided to go to find some medicine. Zuko sighed and watched as Aang took off through the next storm forming. He really hated to stay back with the siblings, but someone had to stay with them, and Aang surely was quicker than him. So Zuko stood back, handing Katara some hot water in a cup, so Sokka would at least warm up a little, even if it was just hot water. Soon they were out of water though, because Sokka turned out to be really thirsty. So Zuko snatched the water skin and headed on the search for some river. There was one pretty close, so he hadn't had to go long. But something startled him.

Looking around carefully he kneeled down in the safety of some bushes to refill the skin, but he tensed with every rustle he heard. As he looked down into the water he saw some reflection on the water's surface: The painted face of a stranger. Jumping up alarmed he turned around, just to face a guy who had an arrow aimed at him. "You're under arrest." The guy stated, but Zuko was not willing to get himself arrested. He rammed the guy, and as the other fell, he headed back up to where he knew his friends, but the guy hadn't been alone. Arrows flying so close, Zuko could feel them passing, were raining down at him from nearly every angle, until he found himself being pinned against a tree with his tunic. Setting the arrow that held him aflame, he tried to escape once more, but four or more people jumped down on him, pinning him to the floor.

"Well, well, well, look whom we have here…" they were greeted, once the fellows had dragged him into some sort of fortress. He recognized the voice before he saw the guy: Zhao… "Prince Zuko… So we meet again." "Let me go!" Zuko hissed at him. "I'm afraid I can't do that." Zhao sneered happily "You see, your father misses you and wants you home…" "Tell him I will return when I see fitting!" Zuko growled "My friends are sick. They need water." "What a pity." Zhao laughed "I can send them a messenger to tell them you won't come, when you tell me where they are." "I'm not dumb." Zuko mumbled. Who did that guy think he was? "Ah, I'm sure you will tell me sooner or later…" Zhao smiled "Chain him up." He turned towards the guys holding him. "Are you insane!" another voice interrupted "We can't lock up Prince Zuko!" "He has turned traitor." Zhao answered "So we can."

His own cries echoing in his mind brought back the dream about the fireball. "We can stop this as soon as you start talking." Zhao said for the one hundred and seventieth time now. Zuko decided to this time not think of another insult but spit at the guy. He wouldn't betray his friends to someone like this Zhao. He could cut his skin and burn his fingers the long he wanted. "Spoiled brat!" Zhao hissed and gave his henchmen the sign to continue the torture. Remembering another thing he had once learned Zuko breathed deeply past the pain, and as soon as the next hand came near enough his fixed head, he breathed flames down on the hands around him. Screaming out in pain they dragged back. It caused Zhao to get even angrier, unleashing a firebeam on him, not only really hurting him, but setting also the room on fire. Some other firebender bended it out though.

"You can leave this one… We have the Avatar…" he heard Zhao, as he once again came out of unconsciousness. "As you wish, Admiral Zhao…" his tormentors answered, leaving Zuko alone in the dark. "Oh Agni…" Zuko murmured "Please, no…" Pulling at his chains didn't cause anything but more pain. He had burns and cuts all over his chest and arms. His fingers had long gone numb. This couldn't be the end of it all! It had barely started, had it? They haven't reached the North-Pole yet! And this horrible, horrible war… He had heard enough on their journey to know what it had already caused. They had to stop it. Again he pulled at his chains with all his strength, and to his surprise one gave way, freeing his left hand. It took him some moments to realize that fate was once again on his side. It didn't took much to firebend open the metal restrain around his head, nor to free his feet. And then the other hand was a kid's task. The door proofed a bit more of a challenge though.

As the door finally gave way, he stumbled out into a hallway. Where the hell were they keeping Aang now? On wobbly knees he crawled along the corridors, until he found a clue. Guards. They surely didn't expect an attack, so they were easily overwhelmed. The next ones were lured away by tossing helmets into the corridor they were in. One by one they were taken by surprise. Then finally he got the last one, using his swords he had reconquered from the guard nearest to his own cell, and a bucket of water, he had collected from a hallway beforehand. This door luckily had a mechanism to be opened and he had not to fight his way through it. "Zuko?" Aang asked, as soon as he had closed the door behind him and hurried to break his friend free. "What happened?" "Guess…" Zuko huffed, splitting Aang's chains with his swords. "Let's hurry before they come back." Aang hurried after him.

"We need to get some frozen frogs for Sokka and Katara…" Aang told them, as they hurried along the corridors. "Let us get out of here first…" Zuko huffed "I don't think Zhao would open the doors for us on free will…" Slipping into the underneath-water-supply they managed to escape the tower and the inner ring, before they had to leave it. As soon as they reached the next wall, trying to climb it using their bending, the alarms went off. "Feared so…" Zuko mumbled, boosting himself up the wall, before someone could see them and shooting them down again. Jumping down on the other side was the next step, and it helped a lot that Aang caught their fall by airbending. "The Avatar has escaped! Close all the gates immediately!" they heard Zhao's voice ringing over the whole fortress. "Hurry!" Zuko hissed, taking the lead again. But it was too late. They doors were already closing, and the guards were closing in on them. Aang used airbending to get them onto the next wall, but there was still one whole ring to go. They made it down the wall, but they found themselves cornered in front of the next door.

"Hold your fire! We need the Avatar alive!" Zhao shouted, and Zuko smiled. How stupid was this guy exactly? It was easy to have a sword on Aang's throat the same moment. Though Aang seemed frightened, so was Zhao. "I suggest you open the gate, or you can go search for the Avatar again, Zhao." Zuko grinned "I bet my father wouldn't want to be too happy about that. Especially when I stay alive to tell them that it was your fault anyways." "Open the gate." Zhao growled, despite the surrounding soldiers looking not so happy about this command. "This situation requires precision." Zuko backed away pulling Aang with him slowly. Still holding the sword to Aang's throat. "As soon as we are away far enough, you need to bend us some disguise, and we slip away." Zuko whispered to Aang "They will try to shoot us…" Aang nodded slightly.

Coming to a crossroad, Zuko saw their chance. "Now." He whispered to Aang, and the Airbender at once, bended enough dust up into the air to block the view from the fortress. Zuko released him at once and the two of them started running. "Now we really have to find a healer…" Aang said on the way. "We don't really have time for that, do we…" Zuko sighed. They hurried towards the swamp Aang had found some frozen frogs in they had to bring to Sokka and Katara. "You sure about that?" Zuko asked, taking the frozen amphibians over from Aang. "The lady said they need to suck them…" Aang explained "We can at least try, can't we?" "Just hope it's not going to get worse…" Zuko murmured. He now felt really cold, not having a shirt anymore and holding frozen frogs with both of his arms. Despite… burns all over his chest and arms were really not helping the situation.

As they finally arrived back at the house they both were dead-tired. Aang put two of the remaining frogs, that hadn't thawed and jumped away into the siblings' mouths and fell onto Appa's tail for some rest. Zuko crawled onto Appa's saddle to find something to cuddle into. He was freezing. Firebending would help as soon as he had settled down and had chilled his racing heart down. It was kind of a meditation-technique, and there was no sense in trying to meditate when you still feel like you had to run for your life. He found a sleepingbag and crawled into it. It helped a bit, enough for him to calm down enough to warm himself again. The siblings awoke out of their fibre-trance as the frogs started to thaw and wanting to get out of their mouths. As theys realized they had been sucking on frogs they sure weren't very happy. So they happily took the freshly filled water skin Zuko had brought them.

As they were strong enough to carry on some hours later, Zuzo was fast asleep, and so was Aang. The siblings woke them though. "What… what happened to you?" Katara asked shocked, as she saw Zuko. "Zhao happened…" Zuko huffed "Never mind…" "Never mind? You look horrible!" Katara complained "We need to see a healer." "I don't think there is any time." Zuko growled, pulling the sleeping-bag up to his face "I need to rest is all." "Sure it is…" Katara huffed, taking the water skin "Let me at least clean them so they don't get infected." And ripping the sleeping-bag out of his grip she bended some water out of the skin and onto his cuts and bruises and burns. As soon as her hand with the water surrounding it, touched his skin, the water started glowing like Aang's eyes and arrow did when he got angry enough. Surprised Katara let go off the water, soaking Zuko's sleeping-bag. But Zuko was far too surprised about what the glowing water had caused than to complain about being wet. Where the water had touched his skin the cuts had closed and the burn-marks had faded.

"You are a healer…" Zuko stated after a while both of them had just stared at the effects. "Appears I am…" Katara answered baffled. "Might come in handy…" "Are you two done flirting?!" Sokka called up to them "We have to pack our stuff." "Zuko got hurt…" Aang told him "Let him rest." "Where have you two been anyways?" Sokka complained "You took forever!" "Zhao caught me…" Aang apologized, while Katara tried her new found ability once more. As Aang told the story of the crazy lady and the archers who chased him, until he was caught and locked up in the fortress, and how Zuko found and freed him, Katara kept busy healing Zuko's wounds. "Why did Zhao do that to you?" she asked, but Zuko simply shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't willing to tell them that Zhao had tried to get their location out of him. The moment Aang had finished his story, the moment Katara was finished healing Zuko up. "Thanks…" Zuko said, as she got up handing him another shirt.


	23. Chapter 16

On one of their next stops along the way, Aang found a water-tribe weapon. So Sokka made them all look for more stuff around. As Katara came back, who was gathering water, she sondered what they were doing, crawling around in bushes and stuff. They did found more: evidence of a battle. As Sokka followed the tracks, he led them down to the beach where they found one of the water-tribe boats from Katara's and Sokka's father. They made camp near the ship. Sokka didn't sleep, most likely being haunted by memory. The rest fell asleep pretty quickly, but was woken as Sokka asked "Bato?" loud enough. "What now?" Aang asked. "Bato!" Katara called, and as soon as Zuko blinked the sleep out of his eyes he could see a figure clad in blue, just as the siblings standing near. The man seemed injured, for his whole arm and shoulder were covered in thick bandages.

The guy greeted the siblings and they hurried to hug him. "Where is dad? Is he here?" they asked. Aang who went to introduce himself was completely ignored. "No, he and the other warriors should be in the eastern earthkingdom by now…" Bato answered, leaving the siblings disappointed. Though it was pretty cold the water-tribe guy told them they should get inside, and led the four of them to an abbey. Bato told the siblings that after he had been wounded in battle, he had been carried here by the siblings's father and that the sisters living in the abbey had cared for him ever since. He also introduced the siblings to the nuns. The nuns simply turned to Aang, who had been mentioned as being the Avatar in Bato's speech. They told him it was an honour to be in his presence.

They were invited into Bato's room, where the siblings felt at home at once, for the floor was covered with pelts, like in their home-tribe. But Aang was less than excited. It got even worse as the siblings discovered a stew of sea prunes. Zuko was not entirely sure what exactly that was, but it didn't really smelled nor looked rather delicious. Aang thought the same as him. And since they still were ignored while the siblings exchanged stories with Bato, it didn't really matter that they did put their bowls aside. So Zuko soon decided to leave and Aang followed him. "What now?" Aang asked, as Zuko strolled across the abbey-courtyard just to find the doors closed. "I don't know…" Zuko huffed "I'd like to sleep, but I can't stand the air in there… and out here it's pretty cold…" Aang went off on his own, as Zuko picked his sleeping-bag from Appa's saddle and found a nice spot to sleep on in Appa's fur. Sure, Appa didn't smell good either, but it was still better than the sea-prune-stew…

As he awoke the next morning, he used Firebending to warm himself up. Aang was already awake and feeding Appa using his bending. As suddenly something fell out of his tunic. A nun talked to him about littering in the courtyard and Aang promised to take care of it, hastily snatching the paper back from her. Zuko watched him closely. What was going on there? Soon later the siblings and Bato came by, asking them to come down to the beach with them. They were talking about stuff, Zuko really didn't understand and Aang was continuing to act all wired. The watertribe-people were talking about something called ice-dodging, seeming to be some rite for young watertribe-members to become men. Zuko wondered if every nation had such rites. They sounded pretty dumb. But Bato decided to take them all on this ice-dodging thing.

They though had no ice to ice-dodge, so they were send through a field of cliffs rising from the water. Zuko winced as he saw them. A glimpse of memory shot back, showing him a gigantic ice-berg and the crushing sound of metal. Sokka was tasked with steering, Katara was set on the mainsail. Aang was sent to the jib. Zuko was left over again. Who could trust a Firebender, huh? Sure. So he was sent on wherever help was needed. Bato sat sown on the floor, leaving their fate in the hand of the children. Sokka would tell them what to do, as they rushed towards the cliffs. Zuko would help the two sail-tasked pull on the strings to control their sail, if needed. The water went stronger and stronger, giving all of them a hard time to fulfil their tasks. As Aang wouldn't understand a command, Zuko translated it to him, since somehow he knew what it meant.

As they passed the first obstacles, though, they were running straight towards the next, and this one was even denser than the first. But Sokka decided they could do it anyways. He ordered Aang to bend air into the sail, and Katara to get as much water between them and the rocks as she could manage. Zuko took the sails, since fire wouldn't help much, and they had to hold the sail when they wanted the wind Aang was producing to be caught in the sails. The boat was rising quickly now, all of them doing what they could to fulfil their tasks. And then suddenly they were over the rocks and back in still water. Sokka sank back on his seat with a huff and smiled at his team. As they returned to the shore Bato went on with some sort of traditional ritual, calling upon the spirits of water. With coal he painted marks on each of their foreheads. Sokka got the mark of the wise, Katara was marked with braveness, Aang got the mark of the trusted, making him act wired again. Zuko got the mark of the helpful, though he guessed that the mark was invented, just to give him credit too. They both were declared honorary members of the watertribe.

Aang whipped the mark away hastily, stating that they couldn't trust him, pulling out the piece of paper Zuko had seen before. "A messenger gave this to me for Bato." Aang sighed, handing the paper to Katara who unfolded it. "You have to understand…" Aang went on but the rest of his argument was cried over by Sokka who discovered that this was the map to their father's whereabouts. Sokka decided to leave Aang and to meet with his father and Katara joined him. They went, leaving Aang and Zuko behind. As they arrived back at the abbey the watertribe-people had already packed their stuff. "Good luck." Katara turned to Aang. "Alright. You too…" Aang murmured. Zuko and Aang climbed on Appa, and they left the abbey. They rode down to the beach again. "I can't believe they left us…" Aang complained. "They will come back…" Zuko sighed "At least I hope so…"

"Do you see that?" Zuko asked, pointing out to the sea. They could see a black spot closing in. "That's a ship…" Aang answered. "Zhao?" Zuko asked. "I'm not going to stick around to find out." Aang decided. "We better warn the nuns at the abbey." "What about Sokka and Katara?" Zuko asked. Aang took his staff. "You go find them, I'm going to the abbey. Don't worry, I'll find you." Zuko nodded and watched how Aang took off. Then he climbed onto Appa's head to take the lead. It was not hard to get the Bison to take off, but finding Katara and Sokka in a thick forest kind of was. Luckily he spotted them quickly but guiding Appa to land somewhere near them was not that easy either. They broke some tree-tops in the act.

"A Firenationship is heading for the beach!" Zuko called out to them "Aang went back to the abbey to warn the nuns…" "Firenation?" Katara asked. "Zhao, most likely." Zuko answered "We just saw the ship heading here…" "How did he find us?" Sokka complained. "Never mind! We have to stay with Aang!" Katara interrupted her brother "I'm sorry, Bato." "I'm sure your father will understand." Bato smiled "Take the map, I know how to get there from here on. If you want to find us, go there. I'll make sure to leave a message." "Thanks." Katara said, and the siblings hugged Bato once more, before climbing up on Appa. They picked up Aang at the abbey soon later, getting back on their way, before they found out whom the ship belonged to. The siblings explained that Aang was their family too and that he needed them more right now. Their father would have to wait. So they all together continued their way to the North-Pole.


	24. ad 16: Fire

As they now drew closer and closer to the north-pole, the air got really, really cold again, causing Zuko to use his inner firebending pretty frequently. How Aang could do in only his thin airbending-tunic truly stood a mystery to the firebender. There hadn't been any land to see for days now, and Appa grew tired, which showed in him sinking deeper and deeper, finally touching the water's surface. Since they hadn't had anything else to do than sitting on Appa's saddle for hours on end, they all were in a pretty tense mood. Minor arguments came up regularly now. Zuko tried to escape it all by meditation, but got pretty pissed by being interrupted ever so often by just another argument, causing him to get into arguments with the others as well.

Worse, they were looking for the Northern Watertribe, and simply failed to find it yet, which was kind of frustrating. It really didn't help, as Aang suddenly cried out in panic, and pulled Appa to the side, causing the others to nearly fall from Appa's saddle. And then ice-bergs shooting out of nowhere went frequent, finally sending Appa down into the water. And then the ships appeared. "guess we found them…" Zuko murmured, as the ships full of men closed in. Unluckily they had frozen Appa solid, so they couldn't really move on. Luckily the people were reasonable and freed Appa, guiding them to their tribe. Though as they reached a giant wall out of ice, it went clear to Zuko that this was nothing like the little village of the Southern tribe. This was a city. With Waterbending the Benders created a hole in the massive wall, big enough for them to enter the city on Appa.

They had to pass another such wall, before they were finally inside. Everything seemed to be made out of ice here. It was like in a dream, or some fairy-tale read to little children. They followed a boat which lead them to where they had to go, otherwise Zuko was sure they would have gotten lost. This place was scary and amazing at the same time. People gathered, as they made their way through the canals of the city to stare at them. Surely they never had seen a giant bison before. Aang was smiling and waving at them, but Zuko pulled the hood of his Tunic over his head and tried not to be seen. He really didn't like all the attention they were getting all too often.

As they passed another boat, going in the opposite direction, Sokka was completely fascinated by the passenger of the boat. A white-haired girl, sitting in the front of the boat like a statue. He actually climbed from Appa's saddle to stare at her a while longer. Unluckily she wouldn't pay any attention to him. They were brought to a hut where they could stay for the time being, and were invited to a banquet this evening in the Avatar's honour. They then would also meet the leader of the tribe. And while everyone else was happy about just another feast, Zuko wasn't. They used the time they had left to rest a bit, and it really helped their mood.

In the evening they were placed at the leader's table. The leader was introducing them to the people present, telling them that today they would celebrate the arrival of their brother and sister of the southern tribe, and that they had brought with them someone special: The Avatar. Cheering went through the crowd as Aang waved at them. The leader went on about they were also celebrating his daughter's sixteenth birthday, and just as he said so, the white haired girl from the boat appeared. "Princess Yue is now of marrying age." The leader said, sounding proud. The girl thanked her father and held a speech of her own, obviously used to such occasions. Then a waterbender and his students were preforming some waterbending-tricks for entertainment.

Their show was quite impressive, as they not only handled far bigger water-supplies than Katara normally did, but also were working in unison, and together, allowing not one mistake, or the fluency of their performance would have suffered. Sokka started stuffing food in his mouth, as Princess Yue placed herself next to him. Zuko watched the scene with slight amusement. It was really entertaining how Sokka tried to impress the girl with plump words and phrases, but to Zuko's surprise it seemed to work. Katara who had listened in broke into laughter, mocking her brother, as Sokka explained he was kind of a prince himself. Meanwhile Aang was introduced to the Waterbending-Master who had performed before. He was allowed to bring his friends and they would start training the next morning.

Katara was very excited to finally be trained. She was accompanying Aang to the training this morning. Zuko had asked to come as well to watch, and Aang had granted his wish. So the three of them had gotten up early to not be too late for training. "Good morning, Master Paku!" Aang yelled out, as soon as the Master came into their view. He didn't seem all too happy about Aang's very direct way. Aang introduced them to Master Paku, ignoring the Master's angry mumbles about not having concentrated, or anything. "I'm sorry." Master Paku said, bending himself a seat out of ice "I think there has been a misunderstanding. You didn't tell me your friend's a girl. In our tribe it is forbidden for women to learn waterbending." The three of them just looked shocked. What was that guy talking about? "Why?" Zuko asked. "It's just rules." Pako answered "You can stay and watch, if you don't interrupt. But she has to leave." Of course Katara went angry at once. She was told that women were trained in healing, but not in fighting. So she should go to train with the other females.

"That's sexist." Zuko put in. "You shut up, or you can accompany her!" Paku hissed at him "Be glad we let a firebender into our city at all! If you weren't under the protection of the Avatar we would long have put you onto prison where you belong!" "If you won't teach Katara, then…" Aang threatened, causing Paku to rise from his seat. "Then what?" he asked "Then I won't learn from you!" Aang decided, turning his back at the Master. "Well, have fun teaching yourself." Paku said "I'm sure you'll do a great job." "Wait!" Katara yelled "Aang didn't mean that." And running after Aang she convinced him to stay and learn from the idiot that seemed to be his only choice. So Aang returned to the Master, while Katara left the scene. Zuko found himself a safe spot and watched.

Zuko listened closely and tried to copy the movements Aang was taught. Paku was not a very patient teacher. He just told Aang he was moving the water around, but was not feeling the push and pull of it. He didn't seem very happy with Aang's techniques, so he set him down on more basic moves. As the lesson was finally over, Aang was wet and tired. On their way back to the hut, Zuko dried Aang up with Firebending. "Thanks." Aang murmured. "You can teach Katara what you've learned so far tonight…" Zuko suggested "Paku does not have to know, right?" Aang smiled at him. "Right." He nodded.

Sokka was pretty pissed, when they got back, for he seemed to be having trouble with Yue. Katara told them that healing-lesson was full of little girls, but that the teacher had proofed to be an old friend of their Gran Gran. Even more, their Gran Gran seemed to have been born in the North. She had been promised to a boy, but had disappeared one night, without saying good bye to anyone. After that, Aang told Katara he would secretly teach her waterbending, but as Zuko wanted to follow them, Sokka held him back. "You're a guy, you can help me." He decided. "With what?" Zuko asked. "Yue of course…" Sokka answered "One moment she agrees on meeting me, and the next she tells me to get lost. What do I do wrong?" "How should I know?" Zuko asked shrugging.

Aang and Katara came back pretty quickly, and both of them looked devastated. Paku had caught them, calling Aang disrespectful, kicking him out of his class. "What now?" Aang asked. "This is all my fault!" Katara cried "Now none of us is going to learn waterbending properly." "We can go to the chief tomorrow morning, asking him to make Paku take Aang back…" Zuko suggested. "Let's just wait and see. We can't do anything right now anyways…" "So what can I do about Yue then?" Sokka complained.

The night sure was a short one, and as soon as the sun had risen, the foursome hurried to the palace. Katara asked the chief to force Paku to take Aang back as a student. They got the advice to swallow their pride and apologize to him, causing Katara to look all but happy. With a look back at Aang, Katara huffed "fine" but as Paku smiled and said "I'm waiting, little girl" she changed her mind. "NO!" she stated, balling her hands to fists. "No way am I going to apologize to a sour old man like you!" she then screamed, being angry enough to splitting the ice underneath them. The ice-vases burst, spilling their content water on the floor, and then she said something, that nearly made Zuko laugh out in joy. "I'll be outside if you are man enough to fight me." She hissed at Paku, turning and leaving. Zuko hurried after her. He wasn't going to miss this.

"Are you crazy Katara?" Sokka asked "You are not gonna win this fight." "I know." Katara answered, slipping out of the coat, throwing it at her brother "I don't care. Someone has to slap some sense into that guy." And turning, for Paku came down the stairs she called: "So, you have decided to show up?" But Paku ignored them, walking past the group, only fuelling Katara's anger. "Aren't you gonna fight?" Katara called after him. "Go back to the healing-huts with the other women, where you belong." Paku stated, causing Katara to bend herself a water-whip, shipping Paku in the neck. Zuko found himself a nice spot to watch. This would be awesome. Even if he had to help the fight a bit, this would be so awesome.

The whip did the trick, of course, Paku turned back to face her and went into attacking. Katara had speed on her side, but the Master sure knew his bending. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." He stated, drawing Katara near with a powerful bending-wave around both of them. But Katara managed to break the circling wave. By now they had attracted a whole group of observers. Katara proofed impressively that she had done her homework. She held out to the Master impressively long. Using the little knowledge she had to its full potential. Then she even went into close combat, which though turned out to be a mistake. Though the girl didn't gave up and went on, sending ice-discs towards Paku, making Zuko wish for some flaming-fireflakes as some snack. This was better than the performance they had two days ago.

"Well, I'm impressed. " Paku finally stated "You are an excellent waterbender." "But you still won't teach me, will you?" Katara realized. And as Paku answered with a "no", she went back into attacking. The fight went on, leaving Katara on the shorter branch soon. It finally showed that she was no master, and that Paku sure was one. He caught her in a cage of ice and therefor seemingly ended the fight. But before Zuko could decide of either secretly come to Katara's rescue by melting the ice-cage, or not take the risk, Paku noticed something on the floor and picked it up. "This is my necklace…" he stated surprised. "No, it's mine. Give it back!" Katara called out. "I made this sixty years ago…" Paku went on "… for the love of my life. For Kanna." With that the ice-cage melted and set Katara free again.

"My Gran Gran was supposed to marry you?" Katara asked. "I carved this necklace for your grandmother when we got engaged." Paku explained "I thought we would have a long, happy life together. I loved her." "But she didn't love you, did she?" Katara stated "It was an arranged marriage. Gran Gran wouldn't let your tribe's stupid customs run her life. That's why she left. It must have taken a lot of courage." Yue who was standing next to Sokka at that moment, broke into tears and fled the scene. So Sokka went after her. Paku agreed to take Aang back into his class then, and he also agreed to teach Katara. So the next morning they went back to the training all together again. Sokka had explained to them that Yue was engaged, and so, although she liked him, she couldn't be with him. It didn't ease the situation for him in any way really.


	25. Chapter 17

As they now drew closer and closer to the north-pole, the air got really, really cold again, causing Zuko to use his inner firebending pretty frequently. How Aang could do in only his thin airbending-tunic truly stood a mystery to the firebender. There hadn't been any land to see for days now, and Appa grew tired, which showed in him sinking deeper and deeper, finally touching the water's surface. Since they hadn't had anything else to do than sitting on Appa's saddle for hours on end, they all were in a pretty tense mood. Minor arguments came up regularly now. Zuko tried to escape it all by meditation, but got pretty pissed by being interrupted ever so often by just another argument, causing him to get into arguments with the others as well.

Worse, they were looking for the Northern watertribe, and simply failed to find it yet, which was kind of frustrating. It really didn't help, as Aang suddenly cried out in panic, and pulled Appa to the side, causing the others to nearly fall from Appa's saddle. And then ice-bergs shooting out of nowhere went frequent, finally sending Appa down into the water. And then the ships appeared. "guess we found them…" Zuko murmured, as the ships full of men closed in. Unluckily they had frozen Appa solid, so they couldn't really move on. Luckily the people were reasonable and freed Appa, guiding them to their tribe. Though as they reached a giant wall out of ice, it went clear to Zuko that this was nothing like the little village of the Southern tribe. This was a city. With Waterbending the Benders created a hole in the massive wall, big enough for them to enter the city on Appa.

They had to pass another such wall, before they were finally inside. Everything seemed to be made out of ice here. It was like in a dream, or some fairy-tale read to little children. They followed a boat which led them to where they had to go, otherwise Zuko was sure they would have gotten lost. This place was scary and amazing at the same time. People gathered, as they made their way through the canals of the city to stare at them. Surely they never had seen a giant bison before. Aang was smiling and waving at them, but Zuko pulled the hood of his Tunic over his head and tried not to be seen. He really didn't like all the attention they were getting all too often.

As they passed another boat, going in the opposite direction, Sokka was completely fascinated by the passenger of the boat. A white-haired girl, sitting in the front of the boat like a statue. He actually climbed from Appa's saddle to stare at her a while longer. Unluckily she wouldn't pay any attention to him. They were brought to a hut where they could stay for the time being, and were invited to a banquet this evening in the Avatar's honour. They then would also meet the leader of the tribe. And while everyone else was happy about just another feast, Zuko wasn't. They used the time they had left to rest a bit, and it really helped their mood.

In the evening they were placed at the leader's table. The leader was introducing them to the people present, telling them that today they would celebrate the arrival of their brother and sister of the southern tribe, and that they had brought with them someone special: The Avatar. Cheering went through the crowd as Aang waved at them. The leader went on about they were also celebrating his daughter's sixteenth birthday, and just as he said so, the white haired girl from the boat appeared. "Princess Yue is now of marrying age." The leader said, sounding proud. The girl thanked her father and held a speech of her own, obviously used to such occasions. Then a waterbender and his students were preforming some waterbending-tricks for entertainment.

Their show was quite impressive, as they not only handled far bigger water-supplies than Katara normally did, but also were working in unison, and together, allowing not one mistake, or the fluency of their performance would have suffered. Sokka started stuffing food in his mouth, as Princess Yue placed herself next to him. Zuko watched the scene with slight amusement. It was really entertaining how Sokka tried to impress the girl with plump words and phrases, but to Zuko's surprise it seemed to work. Katara who had listened in broke into laughter, mocking her brother, as Sokka explained he was kind of a prince himself. Meanwhile Aang was introduced to the Waterbending-Master who had performed before. He was allowed to bring his friends and they would start training the next morning.

Katara was very excited to finally be trained. She was accompanying Aang to the training this morning. Zuko had asked to come as well to watch, and Aang had granted his wish. So the three of them had gotten up early to not be too late for training. "Good morning, Master Paku!" Aang yelled out, as soon as the Master came into their view. He didn't seem all too happy about Aang's very direct way. Aang introduced them to Master Paku, ignoring the Master's angry mumbles about not having concentrated, or anything. "I'm sorry." Master Paku said, bending himself a seat out of ice "I think there has been a misunderstanding. You didn't tell me your friend's a girl. In our tribe it is forbidden for women to learn waterbending." The three of them just looked shocked. What was that guy talking about? "Why?" Zuko asked. "It's just rules." Pako answered "You can stay and watch, if you don't interrupt. But she has to leave." Of course Katara went angry at once. She was told that women were trained in healing, but not in fighting. So she should go to train with the other females.

"That's sexist." Zuko put in. "You shut up, or you can accompany her!" Paku hissed at him "Be glad we let a firebender into our city at all! If you weren't under the protection of the Avatar we would long have put you onto prison where you belong!" "If you won't teach Katara, then…" Aang threatened, causing Paku to rise from his seat. "Then what?" he asked "Then I won't learn from you!" Aang decided, turning his back at the Master. "Well, have fun teaching yourself." Paku said "I'm sure you'll do a great job." "Wait!" Katara yelled "Aang didn't mean that." And running after Aang she convinced him to stay and learn from the idiot that seemed to be his only choice. So Aang returned to the Master, while Katara left the scene. Zuko found himself a safe spot and watched.

Zuko listened closely and tried to copy the movements Aang was taught. Paku was not a very patient teacher. He just told Aang he was moving the water around, but was not feeling the push and pull of it. He didn't seem very happy with Aang's techniques, so he set him down on more basic moves. As the lesson was finally over, Aang was wet and tired. On their way back to the hut, Zuko dried Aang up with Firebending. "Thanks." Aang murmured. "You can teach Katara what you've learned so far tonight…" Zuko suggested "Paku does not have to know, right?" Aang smiled at him. "Right." He nodded.

Sokka was pretty pissed, when they got back, for he seemed to be having trouble with Yue. Katara told them that healing-lesson was full of little girls, but that the teacher had proofed to be an old friend of their Gran Gran. Even more, their Gran Gran seemed to have been born in the North. She had been promised to a boy, but had disappeared one night, without saying good bye to anyone. After that, Aang told Katara he would secretly teach her waterbending, but as Zuko wanted to follow them, Sokka held him back. "You're a guy, you can help me." He decided. "With what?" Zuko asked. "Yue of course…" Sokka answered "One moment she agrees on meeting me, and the next she tells me to get lost. What do I do wrong?" "How should I know?" Zuko asked shrugging.

Aang and Katara came back pretty quickly, and both of them looked devastated. Paku had caught them, calling Aang disrespectful, kicking him out of his class. "What now?" Aang asked. "This is all my fault!" Katara cried "Now none of us is going to learn waterbending properly." "We can go to the chief tomorrow morning, asking him to make Paku take Aang back…" Zuko suggested. "Let's just wait and see. We can't do anything right now anyways…" "So what can I do about Yue then?" Sokka complained.

The night sure was a short one, and as soon as the sun had risen, the foursome hurried to the palace. Katara asked the chief to force Paku to take Aang back as a student. They got the advice to swallow their pride and apologize to him, causing Katara to look all but happy. With a look back at Aang, Katara huffed "fine" but as Paku smiled and said "I'm waiting, little girl" she changed her mind. "NO!" she stated, balling her hands to fists. "No way am I going to apologize to a sour old man like you!" she then screamed, being angry enough to splitting the ice underneath them. The ice-vases burst, spilling their content water on the floor, and then she said something, that nearly made Zuko laugh out in joy. "I'll be outside if you are man enough to fight me." She hissed at Paku, turning and leaving. Zuko hurried after her. He wasn't going to miss this.

"Are you crazy Katara?" Sokka asked "You are not gonna win this fight." "I know." Katara answered, slipping out of the coat, throwing it at her brother "I don't care. Someone has to slap some sense into that guy." And turning, for Paku came down the stairs she called: "So, you have decided to show up?" But Paku ignored them, walking past the group, only fuelling Katara's anger. "Aren't you gonna fight?" Katara called after him. "Go back to the healing-huts with the other women, where you belong." Paku stated, causing Katara to bend herself a water-whip, shipping Paku in the neck. Zuko found himself a nice spot to watch. This would be awesome. Even if he had to help the fight a bit, this would be so awesome.

The whip did the trick, of course, Paku turned back to face her and went into attacking. Katara had speed on her side, but the Master sure knew his bending. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." He stated, drawing Katara near with a powerful bending-wave around both of them. But Katara managed to break the circling wave. By now they had attracted a whole group of observers. Katara proofed impressively that she had done her homework. She held out to the Master impressively long. Using the little knowledge she had to its full potential. Then she even went into close combat, which though turned out to be a mistake. Though the girl didn't gave up and went on, sending ice-discs towards Paku, making Zuko wish for some flaming-fireflakes as some snack. This was better than the performance they had two days ago.

"Well, I'm impressed. " Paku finally stated "You are an excellent waterbender." "But you still won't teach me, will you?" Katara realized. And as Paku answered with a "no", she went back into attacking. The fight went on, leaving Katara on the shorter branch soon. It finally showed that she was no master, and that Paku sure was one. He caught her in a cage of ice and therefor seemingly ended the fight. But before Zuko could decide of either secretly come to Katara's rescue by melting the ice-cage, or not take the risk, Paku noticed something on the floor and picked it up. "This is my necklace…" he stated surprised. "No, it's mine. Give it back!" Katara called out. "I made this sixty years ago…" Paku went on "… for the love of my life. For Kanna." With that the ice-cage melted and set Katara free again.

"My Gran Gran was supposed to marry you?" Katara asked. "I carved this necklace for your grandmother when we got engaged." Paku explained "I thought we would have a long, happy life together. I loved her." "But she didn't love you, did she?" Katara stated "It was an arranged marriage. Gran Gran wouldn't let your tribe's stupid customs run her life. That's why she left. It must have taken a lot of courage." Yue who was standing next to Sokka at that moment, broke into tears and fled the scene. So Sokka went after her. Paku agreed to take Aang back into his class then, and he also agreed to teach Katara. So the next morning they went back to the training all together again. Sokka had explained to them that Yue was engaged, and so, although she liked him, she couldn't be with him. It didn't ease the situation for him in any way really.


	26. ad 17: The Moon

Katara improved quickly, leaving all other students of Paku far behind herself. Now she finally got the right instructions she had nothing that stopped her from learning. Zuko watched every day feeling like he was the worst bender of all time. He had had a teacher and still had struggled in learning every easy step he had been taught. Sure, it had made him be open for other techniques, but still he learned very slowly. It was not because he was dumb. He remembered that sword-fighting had come to him far more easily. But Firebending was just not the same. He picked up moves from the lessons Paku gave his students, but it took him forever to getting them to use. He would repeat the forms every evening after the lessons, and he got the moves fluently soon, but the energy-flowing thing didn't work out the way it should, and there really was not a lot of fire or sun to fuel his bending.

Katara got even praised by Paku, that she had proven that with fierce determination, passion and hard work you could accomplish anything. Zuko wasn't so sure about that. Talent was of the essence too, he was certain. And that was something he didn't have. Aang was only toying around, like usual. They were at a lesson, when suddenly the sky turned dark, and black snowflakes were raining down on them. Katara got pale instantly. The black snow turned the water and ice around them grey instantly. "Firenation-ships…" Katara muttered. Alarm-drums went off. Everyone started running to whatever tasks they were having.

They all gathered back in the throne-hall. It seemed like half of the town was present. The chief was holding a great war-speech about bravery and memory of the heroes that were about to fall in the following war. They called onto the spirits for help, but Zuko simply sighed. As far as he knew, spirits were having their own problems. As he asked for volunteers for a mission, Sokka volunteered himself and Zuko, without waiting for a better explanation, or asking Zuko if he was even willing to join. Other young males stood up too, offering their aid. As they were asked to step forward to receive a mark (another mark, what was wrong with these people?) Sokka pulled Zuko along towards the Chief.

They received three red stripes on their forehead. Zuko was sure he wouldn't want to know what the colour was made of. Standing on the entrance-wall, they awaited the arrival of the ships. It would be waterbending-battle first, holding the troops of from afar as long as possible. But as the first ship came in sight, so did a fireball, and it hit. It smashed a hole into the wall, sending them all stumbling and falling. From that moment on, Fireballs came raining down on the city frequently, destroying more and more buildings, bridges and pathways. Aang hurried to Appa to meet the ships for battle. The Waterbenders followed on boats. Several firenation-ships were destroyed or caught in ice. But there were far more than they could possibly handle.

The "volunteers" were called upon to receive their task. They were sent to infiltrate the firenation-navy in uniforms, Zuko was sure were really outdated. Sokka agreed with him by laughing as he saw the guy who proudly showed the uniform to the other fighters. Sokka explained that fire-navy uniforms wouldn't look like that anymore, and Zuko nodded in agreement. But the guy seemed to insist on staying stupid. He explained that the uniforms were the real thing, for they had actually belonged to firenation-navy-soldiers. "A hundred years ago, maybe…" Zuko put in. "Who are you, ha?" the guy went into his face. "Oh, no one. He's just the freakin' prince of the Firenation." Sokka hit back, causing literally everyone to stare on them. "He has changed sides…" Sokka therefor hurried to add.

The chief though called for silence and went on describing their task. They should find out the identity of the commanding officer. "Oh, I guess I can guess that name…" Zuko murmured "Zhao…" Sokka nodded in agreement "Who else would be so annoying…" he nodded. "I want you two to tell everything you know to Han." The Chief turned to Sokka and Zuko. Han was the guy who was wearing the ancient uniform, and had been given the task of leading the mission. Then Han was instructed to show them his respect, for the chief expected nothing less from his future son in low. Zuko simply knew that this would lead to disaster. If this Han-guy was the one promised to Princess Yue, and Yue not loving this guy, but Sokka, who loved her back but couldn't have her because of Han… well, it was bound to end in a catastrophe…

As the sun sank, the firenation-fleet stopped, giving them time to rest and do repairs. Zuko and Sokka tried to get as much information about the Firenation into that Han-kid's head, as they could think of. But Han didn't seem to be the quick-learning type. Even worse, that kid bragged about having courted a lot of girls, but he favoured Yue, because she was his way to the throne. Of course it ended in a fistfight between Sokka and Han. The chief finally separated them, much to Zuko's disappointment. He was just enjoying the thought about this Han-jerk getting the beating he deserved. Sokka and Zuko therefor were thrown off the mission, since Zuko had dared to step in, calling out: "What? This slug deserved it!" So the others went off without them. "Well, so at least we will survive…" Zuko tried to cheer Sokka up "With these uniforms they won't make it two steps on Zhao's boat…"

As Sokka went to sulk on his own, Zuko went to find the rest of the gang. He ran into them, as they followed princes Yue to a wooden door. "Where are we going?" he asked Katara. "Shouldn't you be on a mission, or something?" Katara asked back. "Sokka got us kicked out." Zuko shrugged "Better this way anyways… It was more or less suicide." Yue told them that she would take them to the most spiritual place in the entire north-pole and opened the wooden door for them. As they stepped through the door, they couldn't believe their eyes. In front of them was a green island, not covered with ice and snow, but with grass and bushes. They hurried towards it. It was far warmer there than outside. Aang threw himself on the grass laughing.

Inside a small pound two koi-fishes were circling each other. One was white with a dark dot on its head, the other black, with a white dot. Aang sat down and went into meditation to find his way to the spirit-world. Zuko sat down on the other side of the pound, watching the fish circling, while the girls whispered in the back. Aang got finally fed up with their constant whispering, asking for some quiet. It was only moments later he started to glow. "He made it." Katara explained to Yue. "He will be fine as long as we don't move his body. It is his door back to the physical world."

Unluckily daybreak came sooner than they had wished for. And as soon as the sun was up, the attack started over. Yue and Sokka came to see how they were doing. The princess seemed to have left to get some help protecting Aang, while he was in the spirit-world. "Can you handle this?" Zuko asked them "If so, I'll try to find something I can do to help…" Sokka nodded and so Zuko made his way back to the battle-site. As he arrived back he had to discover that the firenation-army had already closed in on the city. They had taken the first ring, and Paku and the other waterbenders did their best to hold the second. The tanks were there again. Katara had told them about their weakness, so Zuko hurried to pass the secret on to Paku and the other waterbenders. He did quite some running this day, hurrying wherever there were flames to put out or where he thought he could be of assistance.

He was dead-tired, once the sun sank. It really didn't help his bending at all, but it helped the waterbenders, reconquering their city step by step. It was then Zuko noticed some minor burns on himself, and that his breathing didn't hurt, despite all the running. Seemed like he would finally got back into shape. It was impressive to watch the waterbending-masters do their job. So he stood high on one of the bridges and watch. But suddenly something happened. And this something was not good. Not at all. The whole sky turned blood-red, all of a sudden. The waterbenders lost their bending-abilities and the firebending-abilities were strong as in daylight, despite it was still night. This was wrong, so wrong.

"Aang!" he called out, making his way back to the oasis as quickly as he could. Sure Aang was in trouble! This could not have happened otherwise. He came just in time to pay witness to Zhao threatening the moon-spirit he held in a sack. Aang and his friends had obviously just come out from hiding behind a bush or something like that. They tried to reason with Zhao, who wanted to kill the moon-spirit to defeat the watertribe once and for all, but Aang warned him that it would not only hurt the watertribe but would affect the whole world if they would lose the moon. But Zhao wouldn't listen and fried the poor fish in his sack with firebending. "No!" Zuko cried out, starting to attack Zhao and his henchmen, knocking the soldiers out with ease, since his Firebending was fuelled with rage now. Zhao did what he could do best and chickened out.

But it was too late anyways, the moon-spirit swam in the see, belly up, not moving and the sky had grown dark, so dark it was hard to see anything but shadows. But Aang started glowing again, and stepped into the water of the pound, not willing to give up yet. While the others watched him, Zuko hurried after Zhao. This monster would not escape without paying for his deeds! Suddenly the water beneath them started to glow in a perfect blue. Zuko noticed it, as he rushed after Zhao, who made his way back to his troops in a hurry. And then a creature appeared, made out of the glowing blue, destroying everyone who wouldn't bow to it in respect. The fire they threw at it went out as soon as the flames touched the blue skin, as if it would just be a burning match thrown at the ocean. Zhao continued fleeing from Zuko, until a fire-blast from the young prince stopped him in the run.

A battle broke out between them on the high walls of the city of ice. Zuko felt that he needed rest, but his anger about Zhao's acts were enough to keep him fighting. And Zhao was aware that he had already lost. So he was not the trouble Zuko had feared, since he was a Firebending Master and Zuko was not. And then suddenly, as Zuko threw Zhao back one ring after the next, the moon came back. Suddenly it was back and glowed prettier than ever on the dark-blue sky. Noticing that made Zuko's anger vanish, leaving him exhausted and tired. But Zhao hadn't backed away yet and was still attacking back with the same strength as before. And just as Zuko feared he had made a mistake, following Zhao, the blue glow raised from underneath the bridge they were standing on, like giant hands, picking Zhao up, as Zuko hurried away from its grip, lifting the Admiral up with ease.

"No!" Zuko cried out, hurrying back to safe Zhao, since despite the guy being a creep, he didn't deserve to die. But as he reached out for Zhao to pull him back to safety, Zhao pulled his hand back. He was too proud to take Zuko's help so he chose death instead. Zuko watched with horror, as the blue glow pulled Zhao into the water and then vanished. The war was over, and they had defeated the attackers, but to what price? A lot were injured, some missing, some dead, including Yue, who had given her life to the moon-spirit. And all the damage they had to face now. It was devastating. As he made his way back up to the inner circle to meet the others again, he noticed he needed rest soon. He arrived up at the throne room where the others where, just as the sun was rising again.

Master Paku told Katara he had decided to leave the Northern Watertribe and go to the south-pole together with some other benders and healers to rebuild the tribe. Aang would have to learn from Katara from now on, Paku decided, since she had developed to be a Master Waterbender now. Yue's father was sad about his daughter's sacrifice, but proud she had shown the bravery to give her own life for the sake of the world. So they bade farewell to the Northern watertribe to continue their journey, provided with enough food for the next days. "Where to now?" Zuko asked, as they were back on Appa's saddle. Katara was busy healing the burns Zhao had caused him. "Now we have to find someone to teach Aang earthbending." Sokka answered "So, off to the earth-kingdom." "We have been there the whole time before…" Zuko complained "Couldn't we have picked someone up on the way?"


End file.
